Health and Fitness Blog

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
Research shows that babies born to obese mothers are at increased risk for dying, particularly in the first weeks of life, compared to babies born to normal-weight mothers.

Given high infant mortality rates in the US as compared to other developed nations, the researchers say, if the results are confirmed, “obesity prevention should be explored as a measure to reduce infant mortality.”

Obese pregnant women are known to be at greater risk of fetal death, while there is also some evidence that death rates are higher among babies born to obese women, according to Dr. Aimin Chen of Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska and colleagues.

To investigate the relationship in more detail, the researchers compared records for 4,265 babies who died in infancy and 7,293 surviving babies, using data from the 1988 National Maternal and Infant Health Survey.

Among the infants that died, 8.8 percent had obese mothers, compared to 5.9 percent of surviving infants. Babies born to obese women were at greater risk of death in their first year, and were also more likely to die in their first 28 days of life than infants born to normal-weight women.

While risk was increased for obese women no matter how much weight they gained, infant mortality was greatest among women who gained the most weight (0.45 kilogram or one pound and up each week), who were at nearly triple the risk of infant death. Risk was the second-highest for the obese women who gained the least weight (less than 0.15 kg or 0.33 pound a week), who were at 1.75 times greater risk of infant death.

A similar pattern was seen among overweight women, with those who gained the most weight and those who gained the least at highest risk.

A mother’s pre-pregnancy body mass index had the greatest influence on neonatal death. Deaths due to complications of pregnancy, labor and delivery as well as problems related to preterm birth or low birth weight were higher among infants born to all obese women, no matter how much weight a woman gained in pregnancy; however, increased risk of death due to respiratory problems, birth defects, and SIDS was only seen for the obese women in the highest weight-gain category.

One problem with their study, Chen and colleagues point out, is that the data is “old;” since 1988, the prevalence of obesity and the average amount of weight women gain during pregnancy has increased, while infant morality rates have dropped by around 20 percent. However, they note, deaths related to prematurity or low birth weight have not seen declined and may even be on the rise, “which may be related to increasing obesity and infertility treatment.”

SOURCE: Epidemiology, January 2009.

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Yet another claim that a common and contagious virus is linked to some cases of obesity is in the news today.

Studies on humans show that 33 per cent of obese adults had
contracted an adenovirus called AD-36 at some point in their lives,
according to an article in the UK’s Daily Express, whereas only 11 per cent of lean men and women have had the virus.

The research, to be presented in a BBC television special, is not
big news to scientists, however. Further, some worry that the portrayal
of obesity as something you simply catch could obscure the fact that
overeating remains the biggest driver of obesity.

The facts

The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one-third of U.S. adults are obese, as are 16 percent of children and adolescents age 2 to 19.

Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and other illnesses.

It is increasingly clear, several experts say, that viruses might play a role in some obesity cases. There are 49 known human adenoviruses. They cause everything from the common cold to gastrointestinal problems and eye inflammation, pneumonia, croup, and bronchitis.

AD-36 was first fingered as being possibly linked to obesity more
than a decade ago. Nikhil Dhurandhar, of Pennington Biomedical Research
Center in Louisiana, and a colleague made the connection in 1997 in
research presented at an annual Experimental Biology meeting. That
preliminary study of 199 people found that up to 15 percent of them
carried antibodies to the virus, which provided indirect evidence that
they once were exposed to the virus itself.

Prior to that, Dhurandhar had showed that another type of adenovirus
that infects birds and is found only in his native India could induce
obesity when it was injected into chickens.

In 2006, research led by Leah Whigham of the departments of Medicine
and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison found
that another human adenovirus, AD-37, causes obesity in chickens.
The results were published in the American Journal of
Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology published
by the American Physiological Society.

Then in 2007, researchers found that AD-36 could transform adult
stem cells obtained from fat tissue into fat cells. “We’re not saying
that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides
stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral
infections,” Magdalena Pasarica of Louisiana State University (and a
colleague of Dhurandhar) said at the time.

Today’s claim

Today, Dhurandhar said it’s the spreading of the virus to other
parts of the body that’s key to its ability to fuel obesity. “When it
goes to fat tissue it replicates, making more copies of itself and in
the process increases the number of new fat cells, which may explain
why people get fat when they are infected with this virus,” he said in
the Daily Express.

Other researchers point out that the prime cause of obesity is still likely to be environmental, as in what you eat.

“These associations may give some clues but they detract from the
basic message that we all need to take more exercise and eat a bit
less,” said Tony Barnett, professor of medicine at the University of
Birmingham.

And as if all this isn’t confusing enough, a study earlier this month suggested that exercise, despite its many benefits, it not as important in avoiding obesity as is a better diet.

• Common Cold: Myths and Facts
• Obesity Epidemic Strikes Pets, Too
• Happy People Catch Fewer Colds

Robert Roy Britt is the Editorial Director of Imaginova. In this column, The Water Cooler, he takes a daily look at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond.

• Original Story: Obesity Caught Like Common Cold

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

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FRIDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) — Three conditions often linked
to obesity have also been tied independently to sleep apnea, new studies
show.

Insulin resistance, the progression of liver disease, and living a
less-than-active life were all found to be associated with the common
breathing disorder, regardless of people’s weight, according to reports
published in the February issue of the American Journal of Respiratory
and Critical Care Medicine.

A John Hopkins University study found a strong tie between insulin
resistance — the body’s inability to metabolize glucose — and
sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), pauses or other abnormalities in
breathing while sleeping.

“What our research tells us is that SDB is characterized by multiple
physiological deficits that increase the predisposition for type 2
diabetes mellitus,” study leader Dr. Naresh Punjabi, an associate
professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine, said in an American Thoracic Society news release.

Another Hopkins study found that obese people with chronic
intermittent hypoxia, the lack of oxygen that occurs during obstructive
sleep apnea (OSA), showed liver issues in proportion to the severity of
the sleep disorder.

“We hypothesize that severe obesity, per se, acts as a first hit in
the progression of liver disease, inducing hepatic steatosis, whereas the
presence of the chronic intermittent hypoxemia that often characterizes
OSA acts as a second hit,” lead researcher Dr. Vsevolod Y. Polotsky, of
the Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center, said in the same news
release. “The hypoxic stress of OSA may induce oxidative stress in the
livers of patients with severe obesity, leading to further
inflammation.”

Enzyme levels and other findings, though, suggest that obesity and
sleep apnea are not completely tied to each other, he said, meaning that
each condition must be dealt with separately to also address the
complications of both.

“Our data suggest that patients with OSA and severe nocturnal
hypoxemia should be screened for liver disease, and, conversely, patients
with liver disease should be screened for OSA,” Polotsky said.

The third study found that excessive sitting or standing during the
day causes a fluid shift in the legs during sleep that may have a role in
the development of sleep apnea.

When people lie down to sleep, fluid that has been retained in the
legs during the day gets redistributed to the upper body, Dr. T. Douglas
Bradley, professor of medicine and director of the Centre for Sleep
Medicine and Circadian Biology at the University of Toronto, explained in
the news release. “It is, therefore, plausible that some of the displaced
fluid might reach the neck and predispose one to upper airway
constriction,” he said.

The researchers found these changes in people who were sedentary but
not obese and who they suspected had obstructive sleep apnea — a
discovery that might help explain why 40 percent of people with the
breathing disorder are not obese and why exercise without weight loss
appears to reduce sleep apnea issues in some people.

“An important implication of our observations is that sedentary living
may predispose to OSA, not only by promoting obesity but also by causing
dependent fluid accumulation in the legs, which can shift rostrally to the
neck overnight,” Bradley said.

More information

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has more about sleep apnea.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) –
For years, Bob Clegg’s insurance company paid out some $3,000 a month for doctor visits, drugs and medical devices to treat the health problems caused by his obesity.

In September 2007, when his weight peaked at 380 pounds (172 kg), he had gastric bypass surgery, and now his health issues — joint pain, sleep apnea and esophageal problems — have vanished, and so have the medical bills.

But even though the surgery — in which the stomach is made smaller and part of the intestine is bypassed — has saved his insurance company money, Clegg, who now weighs 240 pounds (108 kg), had to pay the $20,000 cost out of his own pocket.

“It wasn’t until the doctor said my sleep apnea was at a point where we seriously had to consider a tracheotomy that we talked about gastric bypass,” said Clegg, 54. “The irony is that insurance would pay for the tracheotomy, but not the surgery.”

Clegg’s experience highlights the difficulties facing the United States as it confronts an epidemic of obesity, and the problems for President Barack Obama as he sets about extending health insurance to more Americans at a time of runaway costs.

While his experience is typical, unlike most other people, Clegg was in a position to make some changes.

As a member of New Hampshire’s senate, he took what he knew about obesity and the cost of treating related chronic illnesses to the state capitol, where he introduced a bill in January 2008 requiring insurers to offer surgery as a treatment option, just as the state’s Medicaid program for the poor does.

While other states — some of which don’t cover any obesity treatment — are studying New Hampshire’s approach, experts say economics will increasingly drive policy at a time of burgeoning budget deficits.

EPIDEMIC COSTS

About two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, putting them at an increased risk for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoarthritis, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems and even some cancers.

The direct and indirect costs of obesity is $117 billion each year, according to a 2000 report by the U.S. Surgeon General.

Christine Ferguson, associate professor at George Washington University School of Public Health and the director of STOP Obesity Alliance, said the stigma surrounding obesity and belief that it is not a disease are keeping the government from addressing the crisis.

“At the root of this is that people still have a real problem thinking about obesity as anything other than a willpower issue,” said Ferguson. “It is still perfectly acceptable to think about excluding treatment.”

Ferguson, who has held high level healthcare posts in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, acknowledged the difficulty in changing the way government thinks about spending on obesity.

“If I have to balance my budget at the end of each year, I have a choice between investing money in children who have mental retardation, or children with developmental disabilities … or investing in people who have obesity, choosing obesity is a very hard case to make,” she said.

This is even though insurers would recover the costs of bariatric surgery within two to four years, according to Pierre-Yves Cremieux, a researcher with the economic consulting firm Analysis Group.

Cremieux led a study that showed the operation helps patients’ health and ultimately leads to cost savings. The study was paid for by Johnson & Johnson, which makes bariatric surgery instruments.

OBESITY BIAS

Ronald Williams, the chairman and chief executive of health insurer Aetna, said most large employers that it sells policies to have at least one plan that covers bariatric surgery.

But, he said, he’s more focused on prevention.

“The bigger end of the story is, How do we help people not become obese to begin with?” he said. “If they are suffering the complications from being overweight or obese, how can we help them manage those conditions?”

Clegg blamed difficultly in pushing his bill through partly on society’s bias against the obese. The bill finally passed in June, six months before he left the senate in December.

Other states have had similar difficulties, including Utah, where Jeff Haaga has lobbied the state to require insurers to provide greater coverage there.

“If we could only get our lawmakers to understand, like they did in New Hampshire,” said Haaga, who at 360 pounds is classified as morbidly obese.

“Insurers are covering people who are morbidly obese one way or the other, whether it’s surgery or just keeping us alive with medication.”

In Mississippi, rated the nation’s fattest state for the third consecutive year, a bill that would have banned restaurants from serving obese customers died almost immediately after it was introduced in February.

The Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit group that focuses on disease prevention, reported that adult obesity rates rose in 37 states in the past year, while no state saw a decrease.

In its 2008 report: ‘F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America’, the Trust said Mississippi has per capita medical costs that are among the highest in the nation. It also has a Medicaid policy that specifically excludes coverage for bariatric surgery.

For Clegg, the former New Hampshire lawmaker, Mississippi’s obesity problems are clearly linked to its refusal to pay for bariatric surgery under its Medicaid program.

“If Mississippi is that ignorant and would rather pay for diabetic medicine every month and watch people have heart attacks at a cost of $40,000 … but wont spend $10,000 or $20,000 (for the surgery), well maybe that’s why Mississippi has a problem,” he said.

(Reporting by Debra Sherman; Editing by Eddie Evans)

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
Efforts to fight obesity among children and teens should include strategies to help them think differently about their eating and exercise habits, researchers conclude based on a review of 64 studies of lifestyle “therapy” and drug interventions.

And it’s important for parents to get involved, especially for pre-adolescent children, Dr. Hiltje Oude Luttikhuis, of the Beatrix Children’s Hospital in Groningen, The Netherlands, and her colleagues say.

The review is published in the Cochrane Library, which is put out by The Cochrane Collaboration, an international group that produces systematic reviews of health care interventions.

The current review is an update of the first one, done in 2003. No direct conclusions could be drawn from the earlier review, Luttikhuis and her team note, because of the small size of many of the studies as well as quality concerns. The new review incorporates randomized, controlled trials published as recently as May 2008, including 12 targeting increased activity; 6 focused on diet; 36 of behavioral treatment; and 10 of drug therapy. The studies included 5,230 children in all.

Participants in many of these studies did lose significant amounts of weight, Luttikhuis and her colleagues report, but differences in the ways the studies were designed and their quality made it difficult to analyze the studies in combination.

While their review couldn’t show that one method was better than the others, the researchers add, it does confirm that behavioral lifestyle interventions can help kids lose weight.

One-third of the lifestyle intervention studies included measures of potential adverse effects including disordered eating behavior, growth stunting, and worsening of psychological well-being. None of these potential adverse effects were seen in any of the studies.

The researchers were able to analyze the trials that included treatment with orlistat, a drug that blocks fat absorption, and those that included treatment with sibutramine, an appetite suppressant. Both sets of drug trials showed significant weight loss benefits from these two agents — along with a number of adverse drug effects. They were unable to discern whether one medication was more effective than another.

“Evidence from this review shows that family-based, lifestyle interventions with a behavioral program aimed at changing diet and physical activity thinking patterns provide significant and clinically meaningful decrease in overweight in both children and adolescents compared to standard care or self-help in the short- and the long-term,” the researchers write.

While orlistat and sibutramine should be considered as part of a lifestyle treatment program for obese adolescents, they add, “such therapy needs to be carefully weighed up against the potential for adverse events.”

SOURCE: The Cochrane Library, 2009.

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WASHINGTON – Faced with their favorite foods, women are less able than men to suppress their hunger, a discovery that may help explain the higher obesity rate for females, a new study suggests. Researchers trying to understand the brain’s mechanisms for controlling food intake were surprised at the difference between the sexes in brain response.

Gene-Jack Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory and colleagues were trying to figure out why some people overeat and gain weight while others don’t.

They performed brain scans on 13 women and 10 men, who had fasted overnight, to determine how their brains responded to the sight of their favorite foods. They report their findings in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“There is something going on in the female,” Wang said in a telephone interview, “the signal is so much different.”

In the study, participants were quizzed about their favorite foods, which ranged from pizza to cinnamon buns and burgers to chocolate cake, and then were asked to fast overnight.

The next day they underwent brain scans while being presented with their favorite foods. In addition, they used a technique called cognitive inhibition, which they had been taught, to suppress thoughts of hunger and eating.

While both men and women said the inhibition technique decreased their hunger, the brain scans showed that men’s brain activity actually decreased, while the part of women’s brains that responds to food remained active.

“Even though the women said they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat,” Wang said.

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Addiction and a co-author of the paper, said the gender difference was a surprise and may be because of different nutritional needs for men and women, although she stressed that idea is speculative.

Because the traditional role of the female is to provide nutrition to children, the female brain may be hard-wired to eat when foods are available, she said. The next step is to see if female hormones are reacting directly with those specific parts of the brain.

“In our society we are being constantly being bombarded by food stimulus,” she said in a telephone interview, so understanding the brain’s response can help in developing ways to resist that stimulus.

Eric Stice, an expert on eating disorders at the Oregon Research Institute, called the findings provocative.

“I think it is very possible that the differences in hunger suppression may contribute to gender differences in eating disorders and that they are likely linked to gender differences in estrogen and related hormones,” said Stice, who was not part of Wang’s research team.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 35.3 percent of American women and 33.3 percent of men were considered obese in 2006.

Rosalyn Weller, a professor of psychology at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said she was surprised by the results and “thought the dissociation between subjective reports of hunger and brain activation in women but not men was very interesting.”

The results suggest that training in reducing food desires or in reacting to food cues could be effective treatments to combat obesity, said Weller, who was not part of the research team.

Weller was a co-author of a recent paper in the journal NeuroImage that studied women’s brains when participants were shown pictures of food. They found that obese women had a much stronger reaction than normal-weight women in brain regions related to reward.

Wang noted that behavioral studies have shown that women have a higher tendency than men to overeat when presented with tasty food or under emotional distress.

This may result from differences in sex hormones, he said, and further research is planned to see if that is the case.

Alice H. Lichtenstein, an expert in eating behavior at Tufts University, called Wang’s research “very interesting … I hope to see more like it.”

But, she added, a lot of different factors figure in what and when we eat.

“As we learn more about the different factors that go into making that decision we’ll be better at helping people regulate” their eating, said Lichtenstein, who was not part of the research team.

Obesity has been increasing and Wang also suggested that another part of the reason is changes in society.

While food choices were seasonal and more limited for our ancestors, choices today are wider and the food is so tempting, he said.

“You go to the buffet, you see the food, you want it,” Wang went on. “Some people go to the buffet, they don’t eat so much, some do. There is something different in the people.”

The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and by the General Clinical Research Center of Stony Brook University.

___

On the Net:

PNAS: http://www.pnas.org

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
Obese women may have a higher risk of developing ovarian cancer than their thinner counterparts, a large study of U.S. women suggests.

Ovarian cancer is a particularly deadly type of cancer because in the initial stages it typically has vague symptoms or none at all, making it difficult to catch early.

In the new study, which included more than 94,000 U.S. women ages 50 to 71, who were followed for more than 7 years, the researchers found that obese women were more likely to develop ovarian cancer. But the risk appeared to be confined to those who’d never used hormone replacement therapy (HRT) during menopause. Previous studies have linked hormone use to a reduced risk of ovarian cancer.

Among women who’d never used HRT, those who were obese had an 83 percent higher risk of ovarian cancer that normal-weight women did.

The findings, reported in the journal Cancer, suggest that obesity may be one of a few controllable risk factors for ovarian cancer.

They also offer women one more potential reason to avoid unhealthy weight gain, said lead researcher Dr. Michael F. Leitzmann, of the U.S. National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and the University of Regensburg in Germany.

“Our data suggest that maintaining a healthy weight is associated with a reduction in the risk of developing ovarian cancer,” Leitzmann told Reuters Health.

It’s not entirely clear why obesity may contribute to ovarian cancer, but it may have to do with the effects of excess body fat on a woman’s estrogen levels, according to Leitzmann and his colleagues. The fact that the risk varied according to women’s HRT use supports this theory, the researchers note.

The study also found a link between obesity at the age of 18 and a higher risk of ovarian cancer later in life — a relationship was even stronger than the one between later-life obesity and ovarian cancer risk.

It’s possible, the researchers say, that weight in adolescence or young adulthood is even more relevant to ovarian cancer than weight gain later in life.

SOURCE: Cancer, February 15, 2009.

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FORT JACKSON, S.C. – The Army has been dismissing so many overweight applicants that its top recruiter, trying to keep troop numbers up in wartime, is considering starting a fat farm to transform chubby trainees into svelte soldiers.

Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, head of the Army Recruiting Command, said he wants to see a formal diet and fitness regimen running alongside a new school at Fort Jackson that helps aspiring troops earn their GEDs.

Bostick told The Associated Press that obesity looms as “a bigger challenge for us in the years ahead” than any other problem that keeps young people from entering the military, including lack of a GED or high school diploma, misconduct or criminal behavior and other health issues such as eye or ear problems.

According to Defense Department figures provided to the AP, over the past four years 47,447 potential recruits flunked induction physicals at the nation’s 35 Military Entrance Processing Stations because they were overweight.

That is a fraction of the 205,902 such exams given in 2005 and 250,764 in 2008, but still amounts to a hefty number and comes at a time when the military is more interested than ever in recruits. The Army and Marine Corps together paid more than $600 million over the past year in bonuses and other financial incentives to attract volunteers.

While the services have reported exceeding their recruiting goals in the past year, the Pentagon remains under pressure to find a constant flow of recruits. The Defense Department has announced plans to boost the active duty Army by 65,000 to a total of 547,000 soldiers by next year, and grow the Marines from 175,000 to 202,000 by 2011.

Obesity afflicts recruits for other physically demanding jobs, including firefighters. Deputy Chief Ed Nied, chair of the safety, health and survival section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, said fire departments are also making a “major push” to encourage better fitness among young people who want to join.

“We draw from the same exact population that they (the military) draw from,” Nied said from his Tucson, Ariz., headquarters. “This comes from a lack of physical education in the high schools.”

In an interview during a visit to the Army’s largest training installation, Bostick said a slim-down camp could be part of the new Army Prep School at Fort Jackson, S.C. The school opened in August, and gives recruits who didn’t graduate from high school the chance to earn a GED before starting their nine weeks of basic training.

“We are looking at the Army Prep School as a place where we might send some (recruits) that have weight issues,” the two-star general said.

The prep school is housed in several one- and two-story buildings on a small part of this sprawling training installation. The classrooms and living quarters are Spartan. GED candidates wear Army uniforms, exercise before breakfast and study under the guidance of enlisted officers. They do not mix or conduct weapons training with soldiers participating in the nine weeks of basic training maneuvers elsewhere on the fort.

Bostick argues that many of the young people who want to join the Army have a hard time understanding a healthy diet and the importance of daily exercise, but could get within the military limits with guidance.

“It took them 18 years to get to where they are at, so it’s very difficult for them to lose the kind of weight that they need to on their own,” said Bostick, who did not provide any timing for when his idea might reach fruition, nor any projection of its potential cost.

Lawrence J. Korb, a former Pentagon chief of personnel during the Reagan administration, said the Army has to fight even harder than the other service branches to get the recruits they need.

“The Army has a tough time recruiting as compared to the other services,” said Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. He said the burden for fighting an unpopular war in Iraq has fallen primarily on the military’s largest service.

“They are doing this because they are desperate,” Korb said.

Recruiters echo Bostick’s worries about weight issues among potential candidates for the military.

“I’d say that out of every 10 applicants that come in, probably three we couldn’t take — they are obese,” said Sgt. Darryl Bogan, a recruiter in Columbia. An additional 20 percent to 30 percent of recruits are slightly overweight, but some can get the weight off, Bogan said.

“We are getting heavier as a nation as far as our young people are concerned,” Bogan said.

Besides basic weight and height guidelines, Bogan said the Army uses body fat percentages and an aerobics test to determine whether recruits can withstand the rigors of basic training. Recruits must step up and down on a riser at a certain rate per minute, then perform some push-ups and sit-ups and have their heart rates measured.

One of Bogan’s recruits, 18-year-old Idalia Halley, was shocked when she found she was a few pounds too heavy to enter boot camp.

“My mom was like, ‘You better come run with me,’” Halley recalled, saying it took several weeks of healthy eating and runs with her Army-veteran mom to finally get into the service.

On her second try, Halley said she weighed in at 162 pounds and logged a 30 percent rate of body fat to meet the Army’s standard.

Toting her M-16 during weapons exercises in basic training, Halley said she’d slimmed down even more in the first weeks of training.

“I know I’ve lost some weight because I have to pull my pants up tighter,” the Army private said. “And besides, I don’t think the food’s all that great — except breakfast.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The number of obese American adults outweighs the number of those who are merely overweight, according to the latest statistics from the federal government.

Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are “extremely” obese.

“More than one-third of adults, or over 72 million people, were obese in 2005-2006, the NCHS said in its report.

The numbers are based on a survey of 4,356 adults over the age of 20 who take part in a regular government survey of health, said the NCHS, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The figures come from the 2005-2006 survey and are the most current available.

“During the physical examination, conducted in mobile examination centers, height and weight were measured as part of a more comprehensive set of body measurements,” the NCHS report said.

“Although the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled since 1980, the prevalence of overweight has remained stable over the same time period,” it said.

Obesity and overweight are calculated using a formula called body mass index. BMI is equal to weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Someone with a BMI of 25 to 29 is classified as overweight, 30 to 40 counts as obese and people with BMIs of 40 or more are morbidly obese.

A person 5 feet 5 inches tall becomes overweight at 150 pounds (68 kg) and obese at 180 pounds (82 kg). The U.S. National Institutes of Health has an online BMI calculator at http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/.

In the 1988-1994 surveys, 33 percent of Americans were overweight, 22.9 percent were obese and 2.9 percent were morbidly obese. The numbers have edged up steadily since.

Being overweight or obese raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, arthritis and other conditions.

In May, the CDC reported that 32 percent of U.S. children fit the definition of being overweight, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese.

Childhood and adult obesity has emerged as a growing problem not only in the United States but also in many countries around the world.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Xavier Briand)

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DALLAS (Reuters) –
Americans may reduce the amount they spend on food in response to a sour economy but some experts fear they may pick up weight in the process.

The specter of “recession pounds” is a concern weighing on health professionals, who point to numerous studies linking obesity and unhealthy eating habits to low incomes.

They fear that as people cut food spending they will cut back on healthy but relatively expensive items such as fresh fish, fruit, vegetables and whole grains, in favor of cheaper options high in sugar and saturated fats.

“People … are going to economize and as they save money on food they will be eating more empty calories or foods high in sugar, saturated fats and refined grains, which are cheaper,” said Adam Drewnowski, the director of the Nutrition Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Things are going to get worse,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. “Obesity is a toxic result of a failing economic environment.”

Drewnowski’s own research has highlighted the link between income and obesity.

“In Seattle we have found that there are fivefold differences in obesity rates depending on the zip code — the low-income zip codes have a much higher proportion of obese people,” he said.

He added that studies in California suggested that a 10 percent rise in poverty translates into about a 6 percent increase in obesity among adults.

The rate of new cases of diabetes soared by about 90 percent in the United States in the past decade, fueled by growing obesity and sedentary lifestyles, U.S. health officials said in October.

Nine of the 10 states with the highest rates of new cases of diabetes were in the South, a region with huge pockets of poverty and glaring income disparities.

America already tops the global obesity scales. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over one third of U.S. adults — more than 72 million people — and 16 percent of U.S. children are obese.

The unfolding recession could inflate U.S. waistlines further as more and more people fall onto hard times and seek cheaper food.

“The reality is that when you are income constrained the first area you try to address is having enough calories in your diet. And cheap sources of calories tend to be high in total fats and sugars,” said Eileen Kennedy, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University outside Boston.

RECESSION-PROOF BIG MACS

There is anecdotal evidence to support such concerns including the success of U.S. fast-food giant McDonald’s, which has a low-priced menu that is high in fat and calories.

Chief Executive Jim Skinner said in October that the world’s largest hamburger chain “continues to be recession resistant” after it posted a better-than-expected third-quarter profit, helped by a 7 percent jump in global sales.

It has successfully used its Dollar Menu to maintain its hold on cash-strapped customers.

One such customer is Dianthe Clements, 36, a mother of two in Washington, D.C., who struggles to make ends meet stocking shelves in a shop where she makes $11.27 an hour.

“Some nights we go to McDonald’s, they have those value meals. Sometimes we will have just cereal,” she told Reuters.

By contrast, other chains associated with healthier eating such as Austin-based grocery retailer Whole Foods has seen its fortunes sag with the economy.

Whole Foods, which thrived prior to the economic crisis by selling organic, natural and gourmet food at premium prices, has been hit as cost-conscious consumers trade down to lower-priced stores.

In November it said that sales at established stores were up 0.4 percent in the September quarter, compared with an 8.2 percent rise in the year-earlier period.

“We associate poverty with obesity because energy dense foods are less expensive. More poverty does not have to translate into more obesity but it certainly could,” said Dr. Robert Eckel, the former president of the Dallas-based American Heart Association.

Drewnowski said it was possible to eat in an affordable and healthy way, partly by relying on the basic foods which saw America through the Depression of the 1930s.

“The answer lies in affordable but nutrient-rich foods such as ground beef, beans, milk, nuts, cheese, carrots, potatoes, canned tomatoes, soups, and rice,” he said, calling it “a diet for a new Depression.”

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington; Editing by Eddie Evans)

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