The Fat Lives On

I ran across two interesting fat related things this week. One is the Size Germany Project (sponsored by the textile and automotive industry: i.e. VW, Porsche, Hugo Boss and Adidas) which is currently measuring 12,000 Germans to redraw the sizing charts. You can listen to an audio broadcast in English at the link. Germans are growing an average of 1cm per decade! plus people are becoming fatter and less muscular. Also, a woman who is a current size 42 will soon be back to a size 40 without doing anything. The program talks about readjusting products (cars, seats, assembly lines, clothes, etc.) for larger people but it ignores the effects of redefining what is a "normal" size, that you can retain a smaller size outfit, while have a larger body.

A study of Canadians was just published in the journal Obesity, which showd correlations between mortality and BMI. Here's the BMI chart form wiki in case you forget.



And you can double check your own BMI here. Yahoo Canada summerizes the article with the headlin: "Few extra pounds may protect Canadian from early death". But what does the article actually do and conclude? First they use the definitions of Underweight, Normal, Overweight and Obese as accepted by the WHO and the Canadian government using the BMI parameters outline n the picture. They meaure the relative risk (RR) of death (which means they set a specific group to 1.00 and measure other groups againt them, here the Normal BMI range group). Aside: mortality = death, morbidity = rate or incidence of a disease. There are some interesting results, the major finding which Yahoo jumps on is this statement formt he discussion: "being overweight was associated with a significant protective effect as compared to those in the acceptable weight category." They state that because the RR of the overweight group is significantly lower than 1.00. But the are quick to advocate caution in interpreting the results:

Overweight and obesity have been clearly associated with morbid conditions like heart disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes. The threshold for morbidity may differ from the threshold for mortality, indicating the need for the use of summary measures of population health that incorporate both mortality and morbidity consequences of excess weight. This is an important public health message, because while overweight may not be a risk factor for mortality, becoming overweight is a necessary step between being of acceptable weight and becoming obese.

The really scary part is this result:

For the younger participants (aged 25–59), underweight was not associated with an increased risk of mortality. However, for older participants (aged 60+), being underweight was associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality (RR = 1.88 (1.32–2.68)). Underweight was a significant risk factor among men (RR = 2.54 (1.47–4.37)) and women (RR = 1.50 (1.01–2.22)).

yowsa! That first part is good news as I have consistently been in the underweight category. But what if in 30 years I'm still below the Normal weight? RR=2.54! Old skinny people are doomed! Wait a minute, old people shrink right? I just need to shed a coupld inches and my BMI will skyrocket! no problem :)