Profiling overweight patients in the U.S. Navy: health conditions and costs

The U.S.A. has the distinction of being the "fattest" nation in the world, with an estimated 34 million obese citizens. Of grave concern is the reported finding that obesity contributes to 20% of the annual mortality rate, primarily for such conditions as diabetes mellitus, digestive diseases, coronary heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. In 1982, the Navy initiated the "Health and Physical Readiness Program" in order to establish body fat percentages and physical conditioning standards and to provide Navy personnel with weight reduction and other health promotion programs. Participation in such programs is expected to help overweight personnel solve their weight problems and reduce the risks of obesity-related conditions. The purpose of this study was (1) to identify the health conditions recorded in a sample of U.S. Navy enlisted men who had been diagnosed as obese during one or more of their admissions to a Naval hospital from 1974 through 1984, (2) to determine whether these disorders correspond with those reported in the scientific literature, and (3) to examine the obesity-related costs in terms of numbers of days hospitalized and career outcome. The patient population consisted of 518 U.S. Navy enlisted men who were given a primary diagnosis of obesity and 1,092 who received a secondary or additional diagnosis of obesity on at least one of their inpatient medical records between 1974 and 1984. A 10% sample of Navy male patients, all of whom had not been diagnosed as obese, was selected as a comparison group (n = 30,829). All diagnoses (ICD-9) for each hospitalization were included in the data compilations; however, each unique diagnosis was only counted once.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)