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Patterns of weight gain in middle-aged and older US adults, 1992-2010
Sari Stenholm1, Jussi Vahtera, Ichiro Kawachi
1From the aDepartment of Public Health, University of Turku, Turku, Finland; bFinnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland; cTurku University Hospital, Turku, Finland; dDepartment of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA; eDepartment of Social and Environmental Health Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom; fStress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; gSt Michael's Hospital, Department of Medicine and Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; hHarvard Centre for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University, Boston, MA; iDepartment of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom; and jHjelt Institute, Medical faculty, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Background:
Cross-sectional analyses of national data have found that persons with high baseline body mass index (BMI) gain weight faster than persons at the median and that those whose weight was below the median gain very little weight. However, it is not clear whether these population-level changes reflect patterns at the individual level.
Methods:
We examined longitudinal changes in BMI in initially underweight, normal-weight, overweight, and obese US men and women using individual-level repeat data from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 15,895; age range, 40-69 years at baseline). Linear mixed-effect regression was used to model 6-year change in self-reported BMI during 4 study periods (1992/1994-1998/2000, 1996/1998-2002/2004, 2000/2002-2006/2008, and 2004-2010).
Results:
In the first 6-year period, the mean increase in BMI was greatest among persons who were initially normal weight (0.3 kg/m [95% confidence interval = 0.2 to 0.4]) and overweight (0.2 kg/m [0.1 to 0.3]). Weight gain accelerated in these groups with each subsequent period. Weight gain was less for initially class-I obese participants, and a net decrease in BMI was observed for class-III obese participants.
Conclusion:
These analyses suggest that the change in mean BMI among middle-aged and older US adults between 1992 and 2010 resulted mainly from accelerated weight gain among persons who were initially normal weight and overweight.
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