Worrying about weighing too much may be bad for you, no matter how much you actually weigh.
Stuart Goldenberg
Using results from a telephone health survey run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers analyzed data on more than 170,000 men and women nationwide. Among other information about health and lifestyle, all reported height and weight, how much they would like to weigh and how many days in the past month they had felt physically or mentally unhealthy.
The study, to be published in the March issue of The American Journal of Public Health, found that men who wanted to lose 1 percent, 10 percent and 20 percent of their body weight reported 0.05, 0.9 and 2.7 unhealthy days a month, respectively. Women with the same weight-loss desires reported 0.1, 1.6 and 4.3 total unhealthy days a month. The results held even after controlling for age and body mass index.
The authors acknowledge that their findings depend on self-reports, and that women tend to say they weigh less than they do, while men claim to be taller than they are. But controlling for many variables — like diabetes, hypertension and smoking — did not significantly alter the conclusions.
“We need to re-engineer what public health agencies are telling people,” said Dr. Peter Muennig, the lead author and an assistant professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia. “The ‘diet and exercise’ part is good, but the ‘get thin’ part may be dangerous.”
Stuart Goldenberg
Using results from a telephone health survey run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers analyzed data on more than 170,000 men and women nationwide. Among other information about health and lifestyle, all reported height and weight, how much they would like to weigh and how many days in the past month they had felt physically or mentally unhealthy.
The study, to be published in the March issue of The American Journal of Public Health, found that men who wanted to lose 1 percent, 10 percent and 20 percent of their body weight reported 0.05, 0.9 and 2.7 unhealthy days a month, respectively. Women with the same weight-loss desires reported 0.1, 1.6 and 4.3 total unhealthy days a month. The results held even after controlling for age and body mass index.
The authors acknowledge that their findings depend on self-reports, and that women tend to say they weigh less than they do, while men claim to be taller than they are. But controlling for many variables — like diabetes, hypertension and smoking — did not significantly alter the conclusions.
“We need to re-engineer what public health agencies are telling people,” said Dr. Peter Muennig, the lead author and an assistant professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia. “The ‘diet and exercise’ part is good, but the ‘get thin’ part may be dangerous.”
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar