Every Extra Kilo Takes Time Off Life – Results from 195 Countries in a 25-Year Obesity Study

Although wars and epidemics have affected survival over the past two centuries, life expectancy has increased slowly and steadily. Studies predict that this increase observed over the past two centuries has slowed because of rising obesity over the last 30 years and will soon stop unless obesity is prevented.

What Is Obesity?

In its simplest terms, obesity means excessive accumulated body fat, and it is now indisputably known that obesity is a disease. Like diabetes or cardiovascular disease, obesity is multisystemic, affecting more than one body system. It also increases the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and cancer. Furthermore, its progressively younger age of onset and rising prevalence of obesity among children mean that obesity-related problems later in life will be more severe than in the preceding generation, resulting in even lower life expectancy.

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Obesity is spreading rapidly in our country as worldwide. National data show that among people over 15, %34 are overweight and %20 are obese, and this proportion rises daily

OBESITY and EXCESS WEIGHT: A Worldwide Epidemic

The largest research to date on obesity and excess weight, published on 6 July 2017 in NEJM, evaluated obesity’s effects. The study analyzed overweight and obesity among 68.7 million children and adults between 1980 and 2015. Using information from global disease databases, diseases associated with high body mass index were also analyzed by age, sex and various factors. The study included 195 countries.

According to the research results:

• In 2015, 107.7 million children and 603.7 million adults were diagnosed with obesity.
• Since 1980, in 70 countries, obesity prevalence has doubled and continues to rise in other countries.
• Although obesity is less common in children than adults, the rate of increase in childhood obesity has exceeded that in adults in many countries.
• High body mass index is responsible for 4 million deaths worldwide annually.
• Among adults, the world’s most obese country is Egypt, with %35.3 of adults obese, while the leanest is Vietnam at %1.3. Among children and adolescents, the most obese country is the United States at %12.7, while the leanest is Bangladesh at %1.2.
• Two-thirds of deaths associated with high body mass index result from heart disease. Diseases associated with high body mass index have increased since 1990. However, this rate of increase has weakened because baseline cardiovascular mortality rates have declined.

In another study involving more than a million people in America, the lowest mortality rate was observed in men with body mass index (BMI) between 23.5 – 24.9 and women with BMI 22 – 23.4. In people with high BMI, mortality from coronary heart diseasewas also found to increase considerably, and life expectancy decreased in people obese for 5-20 years.

Another study was conducted in Germany among 6139 people. At BMI 25, mortality rates in men aged 18-29 were 1.93 and in women 1.09; when BMI exceeded 40, the rate more than doubled to 4.2 in men, and in women it increased more than 3-fold to 3.8. Every degree of excess weight in young people was also observed to reduce life expectancy. The study found that the reduction in life expectancy caused by obesity was substantial when obesity-related coronary heart disease and cancer were added, and that obesity had a greater effect than accidental deaths.

Compared with the past, obesity-related mobility restrictions are increasing among young people and physical exercise is decreasing. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes also rises in parallel with obesity. Another dramatic result concerns type 2 diabetes: loss of kidney function, one of its life-threatening complications, occurs among young people with type 2 diabetes in %10 of cases. Unless we control the rate of increase in obesity, its consequences, especially among young people, will become more dramatic.

The graph below is from a life expectancy study conducted in America between 1980-2000. The curves show increased life expectancy between 1980 and 2000. According to study results in 1981 and 1984, had the rate of increase continued unchanged, life expectancy would have followed the light and dark blue curves. However, changing conditions, largely obesity, led to the projections in 1995 and 2003 shown by the green and orange curves.

Graph: Observed and projected life expectancy of American women aged 65. Light and dark blue: curves projected in 1981 and 1984 using the data available in those years. Green and orange: expected curves in 1995 and 2003 under changing conditions (primarily obesity).

We warn that because obesity prevalence has increased for years and now appears at younger ages, our children will face more dramatic circumstances.

We can prevent these growing problems through regular exercise and appropriate dietary choices, improving both our own health and our children’s future quality of life.