Clinical research studyIncreasing Trends in Incidence of Overweight and Obesity over 5 Decades
Section snippets
Sample
The Framingham Heart Study, a community-based prospective cohort study, began in 1948, with enrollment of 5209 participants (original cohort).12, 13 In 1971, 5124 individuals who were children of the original cohort (and their spouses) were enrolled into the Framingham Offspring Study. Participants in the original cohort are examined biennially, whereas the offspring cohort is evaluated quadriennially.14, 15
For the present investigation, we chose 2 examinations within each calendar decade from
Baseline Characteristics
In our sample, the prevalence of obesity, stage 2 obesity, mean values of height, and weight increased across the decades from the 1950s to 2000 in both sexes (Table 1; P for trend <.001). Over this period, mean BMI increased by about 2.7 kg/m2in men and 1.5 kg/m2 in women. Smoking rates decreased in men more substiantially than in women (P for trend <.001).
Table 2 displays the baseline characteristics of study participants eligible for analyses in each decade. Among eligible individuals from
Discussion
It is estimated that the lifetime risk of being overweight exceeds 70% and that for obesity it exceeds 35%.23 In the present investigation we assessed if the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity in national cross-sectional surveys was a recent trend or a gradual phenomenon accruing over decades. Our principal findings are 3-fold. First, incidence rates of overweight and obesity increased 2- to more than 3-fold over the last 5 decades in our community-based sample. Second, the incidence
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Supported by a National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, contract N01-HC-25195, and research grants 2K24HL04334 (R.S.V.), and K23HL074077 (T.J.W.). The funding sources had no role in the design/conduct of the study, management, analysis, and interpretation of data, or the preparation of the manuscript. The National Heart Lung Blood Institute funded the collection of data on height and weight (NO1-HC-25195) used in this investigation, and approved the manuscript. Dr. Vasan had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of and the accuracy of the data analysis.