Introduction: Obesity and cancer independently are two important causes of death in the USA. A growing number of studies shows that these two chronic illnesses are related.
Objective: To examine the relationship of cancer and obesity using BMI and Waist Circumference (WC) as indicators using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset.
Method: NHANES (2013-2014) dataset was used to obtain information on BMI, Waist Circumference (WC), and cancer (presence or absence) among the participants. The prevalence of obesity and cancer was tested with Pearson 位^2 test and the relationship of these two with education (5 levels) was examined using logistic regression. The effect of confounding variables (gender and race) was also tested.
Results: The participants who had been diagnosed with cancer were 9.5% of the total participants (11483). More than half of the participants (55%) had taken some college courses or graduated from college. The prevalence of cancer was higher (7.8% more) in females than males. The association of cancer with both BMI and Waist Circumference was significant but weak (p\u3c0.05). The effects of age and gender were significant. By adjusting the model with race and gender R2 increased to 10.3 and all variables were significant in the model ( 位^2(11) =490.931, p\u3c0.001).
Conclusion: Attention to proper diet and following the recommended guidelines could help individuals to somehow prevent obesity and/or cancer, which eventually would increase the quality of public health
