Obese BMI Does Not Harm Current Health of Young Adults

A study examining the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and illness suggests that a BMI of 30 or above, a signal of obesity according to federal health standards, does not translate into current illness among adults under age 40.

In addition, researchers found that across all age groups studied, from the age of 25 to 70, there was little difference in the current health status in normal-weight vs. overweight people based on the medications they took.

The researchers acknowledge that health problems in older adults with BMIs of 30 or higher might be traced back to carrying extra weight in young adulthood. Among people aged 40 or older, use of medication was significantly higher among adults considered to be obese compared with adults with a normal weight.

However, the large population study suggested that people with a BMI in the overweight range are generally not at a higher risk for current health problems compared with people of normal weight, regardless of age.

“A lot of people make a big deal about those overweight BMIs, but we didn’t see a difference between overweight and normal-weight adults across all age groups in the percentage of people medicated, or in the number of medications taken,” says Brant Jarrett, lead study author and a doctoral student in neuroscience at Ohio State University.

Jarrett noticed during his studies on stress that many people, especially college students, said being overweight was one of their main stressors.

“We wanted to see at what point being overweight is a real physical stressor instead of a psychological stressor. Most studies on BMI look at risk factors, which do not assess current health. That’s health risk. So we wanted to see if a higher BMI is associated with current physical health problems,” he says.

The researchers collected data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey U.S. adult population databases covering three time periods: 1988-1994, 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. They collected data on BMI, age, gender, and current medication use among 9,071 women and 8,880 men, separating them into three age groups: 25 to 39, 40 to 54, and 55 to 70. Adults with a BMI below 19.5 were excluded.

To identify the levels of illness among these populations, Jarrett and colleagues examined the use of prescribed medications. Before collecting the data, they analyzed hundreds of drugs on the market, ruling out medications typically used to treat mental health disorders as well as drugs used to treat conditions that are not associated with physical illness.

Across the board, BMI levels and the percentage of adults taking medication increased from the 1988-1994 to the 2003-2006 time frame, reinforcing public health concerns about a growing incidence of obesity in the United States, Jarrett notes.

Both the percentage of people taking medications and the number of medications taken also increased from the 1988-1994 period to the 2003-2006 period, but only among people aged 40 to 70.

After applying a number of statistical tests to the data, the researchers found that among all age groups, with few exceptions, there was no significant difference in the severity of illness between those with normal weight and overweight BMIs. There was a slight increase in the percentage of medication use among men age 40 to 70 with overweight BMIs when compared with men of normal weight.

“Thus, having a BMI in the overweight range, by itself, was not generally associated with an increased medication load,” Jarrett says.

Source: Ohio State University