A new study suggests young adults between the age of 18 to 24 are at the highest risk of becoming overweight or developing obesity in the next decade of their life as compared to adults in any other age group. The research led by scientists at the University College London, the University of Cambridge, and Berlin Institute of Health at Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, found that being a young adult is a more important risk factor for weight gain than sex, ethnicity, geographic region, or socioeconomic area characteristics.
The researchers looked at anonymised primary care health records from more than 2 million adults in England between 1998 and 2016 to investigate the risk of weight changes at different ages and among different groups. They found that people aged 18 to 24 were four times more likely to become overweight or develop obesity over the next 10 years than those aged 65 to 74.
The authors provide the public an online tool to calculate their risk of weight change over the next one, five and 10 years based on an individual’s current weight and height, age, sex, ethnicity and socio-economic area characteristics. Co-senior author Professor Harry Hemingway said, “Calculating the personal risk of transitioning to a higher weight category is important as the Covid-19 pandemic collides with the obesity pandemic, people are exercising less and finding it harder to eat healthy diets during lockdowns.”
Lead author Dr Michail Katsoulis said, “Our results show clearly that age is the most important socio demographic factor for BMI change. Young people aged 18 to 24 have the highest risk of BMI gain, compared to older people. We also found that among individuals with obesity, those aged between 35 and 54 had the highest risk of not losing weight compared to other adults.”
Co-senior author Dr Claudia Langenberg said, “Young people go through big life changes. They may start work, go to university or leave home for the first time, the habits they form in these years may stick through adulthood. If we are serious about preventing obesity, then we should develop interventions that can be targeted and are relevant for young adults.”
In the study, the risks of moving to a higher BMI category over 10 years were 4-6 times higher in the youngest than the oldest age group. People aged 18-24 were 4.2 times more likely than people aged 65-74 to transition from normal weight to overweight/obesity, were 4.6 times more likely to transition from the overweight category to obesity and 5.9 times more likely to move from non-severe obesity to severe obesity.
The study used data from 400 primary care centres. Participants were aged 18 to 74 and had had their weight and BMI measured at their general practice on more than one occasion between 1998 and 2016. Researchers looked at changes in BMI after one year, five years and 10 years, calculating the likelihood of moving between weight categories (underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese) at different ages and in different groups.
