Older obese Americans have increasing physical problems

Older obese people are more likely to have problems with routine physical activities as they age than their normal-weight peers, researchers said.
In a study evaluating health records of 9,928 adults aged 60 and older, those who were obese found it increasingly difficult, or in some cases, impossible, to perform tasks such as getting dressed or walking between rooms, as years went on. The study appeared in the Nov. 7 Journal of the American Medical Association.
More than 63 million adults in the U.S., or one-third, are obese, according to the National Institutes of Health. The study found that while non-obese elders were unlikely to become “functionally” impaired as they age, those odds increased by 43 percent for obese people. More needs to be done by doctors, patients and the government to prevent obesity and its health consequences, lead author Dawn Alley said.
“Obese older people are at an increased risk for preventable disability,” said Alley, a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, in an interview. “That gap between obese and non-obese elderly is growing over time.”
The study is the first to look at the effects obesity has on disability over time, according to researchers.
Researchers in the study compared health data from two periods, 1988 to 1994, and 1999 to 2004, that drew from surveys conducted by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. •

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