Trajectories of weight change from late adolescence to late middle age for lean and obese individuals

Abstract

To identify and better understand trajectories of individual weight change associated with increasing age, we analyzed longitudinal data from a cohort of older Americans (171,711 men and 122,563 women). Subjects entered the cohort in 1996 at a mean age of 62.5 years and they reported current height and weight, and weight at ages 18, 35, and 50 years. At study entry in 1996, prevalences of overweight and obesity among men were 49.6% and 19.9%, respectively. Across 9 categories of current BMI (from <18.5 kg/m2 to ≥35 kg/m2) there was no difference in mean BMI at age 18 (all categories of current BMI had a mean BMI at age 18 of between 21.4 and 21.6 kg/m2). Likewise, mean BMI at age 35 was almost identical across the 9 categories of current BMI. However, BMI at age 50 was strongly associated with current BMI (19.8 kg/m2 in the bottom category with a monotonic increase to 33.2 kg/m2 in the top category). Results for women were essentially identical to those in men. In this cohort of subjects that was primarily lean at late adolescence, neither BMI at age 18 nor BMI at age 35 were associated with current BMI despite high prevalences of overweight and obesity at late middle age. Weight gain between ages 35 and 50, however, was highly predictive of overweight and obesity in late middle age.Funding: NIH K07 CA108910‐01A1 to A.F., and NCI Intramural Research Program.