Obesity at age 20 can cut life span

Jet, Feb 3, 2003

Being fat at age 20 can take 20 years off your life, a study has found.

Researchers recently reported 20-year-old obese White men live 13 years less than men of normal weight. And the news was worse for obese Black men, who live 20 years less than their slim peers.

The life-shortening effects were lower for 20-year-old obese White women, who live eight years less, and for obese Black women, who lost five years.

The study, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was led by biostatistician David Allison.

He found life expectancy for 20-year-olds with body-mass indexes of at least 45 is 13 years lower for White men and 20 years lower for Black men, compared with people of normal weight.

Body-mass index (BMI) is a height-to-weight ratio; 30 and above is considered obese. The ideal index is between 18 and 25. The study found there were racial differences in how fat people had to be before life expectancy dropped.

In Blacks, life expectancy was not shortened in obese men with BMIs under 31 and in obese women under 37. But in Whites, lifespan reductions of about one year occurred in young people who were merely overweight-meaning those men with a BMI of about 25.5 and women with a BMI of about 27.5.