Prevalence of obesity in Switzerland 1992-2007: the impact of education, income and occupational class

Prevalence of excess weight varies substantially by socioeconomic position (SEP). SEP can be defined with different indicators. The strength of the association of SEP with excess weight differs by SEP indicator, between populations and over time. We examined the prevalence of overweight and obesity (body mass index 25–29.9 and ≥30 kg m−2) in Switzerland by educational level, household income tertile and occupational class (three categories for each indicator). Self-reported data stem from four cross-sectional population surveys including 53 588 persons aged between 25 and 74 years. The overall prevalence of overweight increased between 1992 and 2007 from 37.4% to 41.4% in men and from 18.8% to 21.9% in women. Obesity prevalence increased from 7.2% to 9.7% in men and from 5.4% to 8.6% in women. Inequalities were calculated with multivariable logistic regression. Inequalities were larger in women than in men and for obesity than for overweight. However, overweight and obesity inequalities did not significantly change over time, despite overall increasing prevalence. Although all SEP indicators were independently associated with excess weight, the association was strongest with education, particularly in women. Programmes and policies aimed at preventing excess weight should target individuals with low education early in life

The problem of obesity among adolescents in Hong Kong: a comparison using various diagnostic criteria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obesity is now a global epidemic. In this study, we aimed to assess the rates of obesity using several major diagnostic criteria in Chinese school adolescents in Hong Kong.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This is a cross-sectional study. Using a computer-generated coding system, we randomly selected schools from different geographical regions in Hong Kong to obtain a representative sample. Subjects aged 11–18 years of age were randomly selected from different class of the schools. Their rates of obesity according to four different international and local criteria were compared [International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) 2000 criterion; the Group of China Obesity Task Force (COTF) 2004 criterion; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2000 Growth Charts and the Hong Kong Growth Survey (HKGS) charts in 1993].</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 2098 adolescents [982 (46.8%) boys and 1116 (53.2%) girls], the mean age (± SD) was 15.1 ± 1.8 years (range: 11–18 years; median: 15.0 years). The crude rates of obesity were similar based on IOTF, COTF or CDC criteria (boys: 3.9–6.0%, girls: 1.8–3.7%), however, the rate increased to 11–27% if the HKGS charts were used. Obesity rate varied markedly according to age. It decreased from 8–10% among those aged 12–13 years to 2–4% among those aged 17–18 years.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The prevalence of obesity in Hong Kong adolescents using various diagnostic criteria were similar except for the 1993 HKGS criteria, which gave an exceeding high figure. Using the IOTF, COTF or CDC criteria, the adolescent obesity in Hong Kong varied from 1.8% to 6.0%.</p

Physical Activity Attenuates the Genetic Predisposition to Obesity in 20,000 Men and Women from EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study

Shengxu Li and colleagues use data from a large prospective observational cohort to examine the extent to which a genetic predisposition toward obesity may be modified by living a physically active lifestyle

A multifactorial analysis of obesity as CVD risk factor: Use of neural network based methods in a nutrigenetics context

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obesity is a multifactorial trait, which comprises an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The aim of the current work is to study the complex etiology beneath obesity and identify genetic variations and/or factors related to nutrition that contribute to its variability. To this end, a set of more than 2300 white subjects who participated in a nutrigenetics study was used. For each subject a total of 63 factors describing genetic variants related to CVD (24 in total), gender, and nutrition (38 in total), e.g. average daily intake in calories and cholesterol, were measured. Each subject was categorized according to body mass index (BMI) as normal (BMI ≤ 25) or overweight (BMI > 25). Two artificial neural network (ANN) based methods were designed and used towards the analysis of the available data. These corresponded to i) a multi-layer feed-forward ANN combined with a parameter decreasing method (PDM-ANN), and ii) a multi-layer feed-forward ANN trained by a hybrid method (GA-ANN) which combines genetic algorithms and the popular back-propagation training algorithm.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PDM-ANN and GA-ANN were comparatively assessed in terms of their ability to identify the most important factors among the initial 63 variables describing genetic variations, nutrition and gender, able to classify a subject into one of the BMI related classes: normal and overweight. The methods were designed and evaluated using appropriate training and testing sets provided by 3-fold Cross Validation (3-CV) resampling. Classification accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and area under receiver operating characteristics curve were utilized to evaluate the resulted predictive ANN models. The most parsimonious set of factors was obtained by the GA-ANN method and included gender, six genetic variations and 18 nutrition-related variables. The corresponding predictive model was characterized by a mean accuracy equal of 61.46% in the 3-CV testing sets.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The ANN based methods revealed factors that interactively contribute to obesity trait and provided predictive models with a promising generalization ability. In general, results showed that ANNs and their hybrids can provide useful tools for the study of complex traits in the context of nutrigenetics.</p

The common FTO variant rs9939609 is not associated with BMI in a longitudinal study on a cohort of Swedish men born 1920-1924

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Common FTO (fat mass and obesity associated) gene variants have recently been strongly associated with body mass index and obesity in several large studies. Here we set out to examine the association of the <it>FTO </it>variant rs9939609 with BMI in a 32 year follow up study of men born 1920-1924. Moreover, we analyzed the effect of physical activity on the different genotypes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The <it>FTO </it>rs9936609 was genotyped using an Illumina golden gate assay. BMI was calculated using standard methods and body fat was estimated by measuring skinfold thickness using a Harpenden caliper. Physical activity was assessed using a four question medical questionnaire.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>FTO </it>rs9939609 was genotyped in 1153 elderly Swedish men taking part of a population-based cohort study, the ULSAM cohort. The risk of obesity and differences in BMI according to genotype at the ages of 50, 60, 70, 77 and 82 were investigated. We found no increased risk of obesity and no association with BMI at any age with the <it>FTO </it>rs9939609 variant. We found however interaction between physical activity at the age of 50 years and genotype on BMI levels (p = 0.039) and there was a clear trend towards larger BMI differences between the TT and AA carriers as well as between AT and AA carriers in the less physically active subjects.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Here we found that the well established obesity risk allele for a common variant in <it>FTO </it>does not associate with increased BMI levels in a Swedish population of adult men which reached adulthood before the appearance of today's obesogenic enviroment. There is an interaction between physical activity and the effect of the FTO genotype on BMI levels suggesting that lack of physical activity is a requirement for an association of FTO gene variants to obesity.</p

Polygenic risk for obesity and its interaction with lifestyle and sociodemographic factors in European children and adolescents

Background Childhood obesity is a complex multifaceted condition, which is influenced by genetics, environmental factors, and their interaction. However, these interactions have mainly been studied in twin studies and evidence from population-based cohorts is limited. Here, we analyze the interaction of an obesity-related genome-wide polygenic risk score (PRS) with sociodemographic and lifestyle factors for BMI and waist circumference (WC) in European children and adolescents. Methods The analyses are based on 8609 repeated observations from 3098 participants aged 2-16 years from the IDEFICS/I.Family cohort. A genome-wide polygenic risk score (PRS) was calculated using summary statistics from independent genome-wide association studies of BMI. Associations were estimated using generalized linear mixed models adjusted for sex, age, region of residence, parental education, dietary intake, relatedness, and population stratification. Results The PRS was associated with BMI (beta estimate [95% confidence interval (95%-CI)] = 0.33 [0.30, 0.37], r(2) = 0.11, p value = 7.9 x 10(-81)) and WC (beta [95%-CI] = 0.36 [0.32, 0.40], r(2) = 0.09, p value = 1.8 x 10(-71)). We observed significant interactions with demographic and lifestyle factors for BMI as well as WC. Children from Southern Europe showed increased genetic liability to obesity (BMI: beta [95%-CI] = 0.40 [0.34, 0.45]) in comparison to children from central Europe (beta [95%-CI] = 0.29 [0.23, 0.34]), p-interaction = 0.0066). Children of parents with a low level of education showed an increased genetic liability to obesity (BMI: beta [95%-CI] = 0.48 [0.38, 0.59]) in comparison to children of parents with a high level of education (beta [95%-CI] = 0.30 [0.26, 0.34]), p-interaction = 0.0012). Furthermore, the genetic liability to obesity was attenuated by a higher intake of fiber (BMI: beta [95%-CI] interaction = -0.02 [-0.04,-0.01]) and shorter screen times (beta [95%-CI] interaction = 0.02 [0.00, 0.03]). Conclusions Our results highlight that a healthy childhood environment might partly offset a genetic predisposition to obesity during childhood and adolescence.Peer reviewe

Socioeconomic consequences of obesity : Population-based longitudinal studies of Swedish men

The overall aim of the thesis was to study if Swedish obese male adolescents become socioeconomicly disadvantaged in later life. Among Swedish men born 1951-79, who went through military conscription examination at age 18-20 years, the associations between obesity and attained education, occupation, income, and disability pension have been studied. The target populations were identified in the Multi-Generation Register. A record linkage was made between this register and data from the following national registers: the Register of the Total Population, the Swedish Military Service Conscription Register, the Population and Housing Censuses, the Longitudinal Database of Education, Income and Occupation, Statistics Sweden s Register on School Marks, the Cause of Death Register, the Hospital Discharge Register, the Swedish Twin Register, and the Swedish Young Male Twin Study. The associations between body mass index in late adolescence and later socioeconomic outcomes were analyzed by logistic regression, polytomous logistic regression, and Cox regression among all study subjects and by linear regression estimated with generalized estimating equations and conditional logistic regression within brother pairs. The results showed that obese Swedish men are doing worse in the educational system than their normal weight counterparts even after adjustments for intelligence, parental education and parental socioeconomic position. Compared to normal weight counterparts, obese men were 40% less likely to start a university education (hazard ratio 0.63 95% confidence interval 0.60; 0.66) and 50% less likely to actually graduate (hazard ratio 0.48 95% confidence interval 0.44; 0.52). Second, obese Swedish men had an increased risk of approximately 35% of receiving disability pension (hazard ratio 1.35 95% confidence interval 1.19; 1.52) compared to their normal weight counterparts when own and parental socioeconomic factors were taken into account. Third, obese men were more likely to move downward and less likely to move upward in the social hierarchy compared to normal weight men. In addition, results showed that obesity was longitudinally associated to low educational level, low socioeconomic position and low income, irrespective of own intelligence, environmental and genetic factors shared by brothers, and parental socioeconomic position. In conclusion, the results show that obesity in late adolescence has socioeconomic consequences in later life. Explanations for these consequences may be sought in the non-shared environment and are speculated to be co-morbidities of obesity, personal characteristics of obese individuals such as aspirations and self-esteem, or factors on the societal level such as discrimination