Professor analyzes morbid obesity mortality rates

Most professionals agree that people who are overweight have higher mortality rates. Health Policy Researcher Paula Lantz disagrees.

David Mechanic, director at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, introduced Lantz at yesterday’s Brown Bag seminar, highlighting some of her achievements and expertise in the field of morbidity and obesity.

“[Lantz] has a PhD in sociology and also worked as a scholar at the Robert Wood Johnson in Wisconsin before taking over the program there,” he said. “She has also shown with her work that the informed opinion is wrong at times.”

Lantz, a professor and chair for the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University, spoke about a study conducted between December 2012 and January 2013 on morbidity and obesity.

“The survey was completed by GfK Custom Research, also known as Knowledge Networks,” she said. “The sample was non-institutionalized U.S. adults aged 18 and up. The group was a sample of 1,999 people from the general population with an oversample of 658 people with a [Body Mass Index] over 35.”

While Lantz understands that obesity rates have increased in all age groups over time, she said being overweight or obese can protect those age 55 and older from mortality.

Survey results were separated by BMI categories: Underweight, normal weight, slightly overweight, obese and morbidly obese. Although the survey took all results into account, Lantz said she would focus specifically on those in the morbidly obese category, whose BMIs are 35 or more.

She said the survey presented the same questions to all participants — but changed the order that each participant received them. Questions presented various topics, including medical opinions from doctors and participants’ thoughts about their bodies.

When asked self-perspective questions, few participants called themselves overweight or very obese — most said they were “somewhat obese,” according to the survey.

When asked about their ideal weight, the survey reported 43 percent of males and more than 50 percent of females said they were 15 pounds overweight.

For those in the category of morbid obesity at or above a BMI of 35, the survey reported 25 percent of participants had sleep apnea, and 20 percent had back and foot problems.

Fifty percent said they had a limited ability to climb several flights of stairs or walk several blocks. Twenty percent of survey participants said they experienced often or daily trouble tying their shoes, as well as trouble fitting into a public seat at restaurants, theaters or airplanes.

Lantz said a surprising statistic from the survey emerged when it asked if participants were willing to eliminate time from their lives in order to lose weight now.

Participants with 35 and higher BMIs were willing, on average, to give up 1.5 to two years of their lives to lose anywhere from 10 percent of their weight up to their ideal weight.

Lantz said the results from the survey have not been discussed or published yet, and the group of about 20 people who attended the seminar was the first to hear the results.

“I refused to speak with anyone from the pharmaceutical companies while doing the research and until the results are published,” Lantz said. “I didn’t want them to tell me how to measure or look at certain results and have any kind of effect of the results.”

She said the survey showed that while obesity is protective for older people, just getting off the couch can be very productive, and a growing number of studies are showing this. It is possible to be overweight and fit.

She discussed the ideas that certain professionals have about obesity and said many see it as a medical issue — diagnosed as either a disease or a chronic illness. When she asked the attendees of the seminar if they thought obesity was a disease, not a single hand was raised.

Lantz said obesity must be addressed at both a primary and secondary prevention level.

At a primary level, obesity should not exist — especially in children, she said. The secondary level focuses on preventing the obesity from worsening and creating other complications.

People can learn from the parallels and lessons of the current smoking prevention efforts, Lantz said, and primary prevention can also be applied to obesity in the same way it applies to tobacco.

Jessica Allen, a postdoctoral fellow at the University, said she thought the seminar was interesting, and some of the facts presented intrigued her.

“It was interesting seeing behind the scenes of the [Food and Drug Administration] and their policies, and how a real-world researcher can influence them,” she said. “It was also interesting to see how people presented themselves.”

Allen said it was surprising to see how many people were willing to give up years of their life to lose weight. She said she would like to see how the results broke down by ethnicity and age groups instead of just BMI categories.

The survey showed secondary prevention of obesity plays a crucial role in public health response, Lantz said. The FDA is also interested in the results of the survey for determining guidelines for future obesity medication.

“There is no magic pill to take, they are all in the land of risks and trade offers. The FDA needs to reconsider the risk and benefit equation of weight-loss drugs,” she said. “The real challenge is [informing] consumers, [so they] can make individual risk and benefit assessments.”