The+Brainiacs

The Brainiacs

Group members: Jeremy Ayala Chris Cornejo Ahtsham Khan Joe Somervell

1. How can the academics counteract the growth of obesity? 2. Why is the US still so obese, despite supposed "breakthroughs" by scientists? 3. What biological mechanisms are thought to be involved in explaining the link between obesity and cancer? 4. What can be done to better educate young people about being healthier? 5. Is it possible for the US to become less obese at some point? 6. Is there a relationship between obesity and disability? 7. What are some functional disabilities that are associated with obesity? 8. Are cause-specific excess deaths effected by BMI? 9. What have scientists done to study how diet and exercise will help obese people? 10. How does childhood body-mass index affect one's risks of heart diseases later in life? 11.How many people get cancer by being overweight or obese? How many die? 12. Does obesity increase the risk of cancer in the esophagus or stomach?
 * Research Questions:**

To Calculate your BMI look at the chart below. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey tracks the prevalence of obesity through measurements of random men and women with height and weight measurements. In the year 2007-2008 the overall percent of obese women over 20 was 35.5% and the percent of men was 32.2%. Obesity has shown a steady linear increase in the past 40 years, but the obesity trend has almost leveled out over the past few collection surveys. People over 60 years old were shown to have the largest percentage of obesity at 37.1%. The conclusions show that as people get older they become heavier. It was also observed that women over 20 years old had a higher rate of obesity than men.
 * Joe Somervell-**
 * Prevalence and Trends in Obesity Among US Adults, 1999-2008**

** Weight Loss, Exercise, or Both and Physical Function in Obese Older Adults ** An experiment involving 93 patients, 65 years or older, for a year, tested what the improvement of their Physical Performance Test score, which measures a persons physical status. There were 3 groups: a control group involving just diet, another control group involving just exercise and a group that involved both variables. It was observed that the diet group increased their scores 12%, where as the exercise group increased their score by 15%. The group combining exercise and diet improved their scores 21%. Therefore if an obese person was going to attempt to lose weight, it would be most effective to combine both a change in diet and an exercise plan put into action at the same time. The study shows how obesity can be solved, but not prevented. ** Childhood Body-Ma **** ss Index and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Adulthood ** In the United States 19% of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight. Risks of coronary heart disease(CHD), such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, afflicted simple sugar tolerance, and vascular problems, are already present in overweight children. 25 years old was considered the start of adulthood for reasons of consistency. The study was based off of public records of children in the Copenhagen School District. Their BMIs were calculated and after the age of 25 all incidents involving symptoms of Coronary Heart Disease were recorded. All the students showed steady increase in their BMIs. As the subjects grew older those who were obese showed visits to the hospital for symptoms caused by Coronary Heart Disease. At the end of the study it was shown that the children who had larger BMIs were more likely to get CHD as adults and even develop those types of problems as juveniles.


 * Jeremy Ayala-**
 * Association of Adolescent Obesity with risk of severe Obesity in Adulthood**

It has been seen that when children are obese, then they are more likely to become or remain obese into adulthood. Children who had extremely high BMI are more likely to encounter life threatening diseases or complications. There is a lack of treatment options to get rid of obesity, so primary prevention is critical. The highest rate of obesity was for non-Hispanic black women. Some problems severely obese people encounter are diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, asthma, and arthritis. It was estimated that in 2000 approximately 2.2 percent of adults, or 4.8 million individuals, were considered to be “severely obese”. []

Nearly one out of five children in the US is overweight or obese. Despite the fact that children have fewer health related and medical related problems as adults, they carry the risk of being overweight as an adult. Children could also develop chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes. They are also more prone to being stressed out, constant sadness, and having a low self esteem. Also, children could develop skin problems, such as heat rash, fungal infections, and acne. However, some younger boys appear to be overweight, but as they get older and bigger, they’ll grow into their weight. This is because children tend to grow in unpredictable patterns throughout childhood
 * Obesity in children**

http://children.webmd.com/obesity-children ** Dynamics of ** ** Obesity ** ** and Chronic Health Conditions among Children and Youth **
 * Ahtsham Khan**-

Over the past 30 years, the prevalence of chronic conditions in children and adolescents has increased,particularly for asthma, obesity, and behavior or learning problems. There have also been changes in rates of rarer conditions, such as squeal of prematurity neonatal human immunodeficiency yours infection, and Down syndrome, due to advances in treatment and prenatal care. Prospective study using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth–Child Cohort (1988-2006) of 3 nationally representative cohorts of children. The end-study prevalence of any chronic health condition was 12.8% (95%confidence interval [CI], 11.2%-14.5%) for cohort 1 in 1994, 25.1% (95% CI, 22.7%-27.6%) for cohort 2 in 2000, and 26.6% (95% CI, 23.5%-29.9%) for cohort 3 in2006. There was substantial turnover in chronic conditions. The phrase chronic condition might imply permanence. Yet conditions change over time because of new treatments, environmental factors, and a child's development, in addition to the nature of the condition itself.

**Ahtsham khan**- There is 2 national surveys in Mexico. The first was conducted in 2000 in 45,260 adults as part of the National Health Survey, which was designed as a multistage, stratified, and clustered survey, nationally representative of the Mexican non institutionalized population. The second was held 2003 in 12,873 adults as part of the social welfare survey, which was designed to be representative of the poorest, rural in 7 states of Mexico and their daily per capita income of US $2. Body mass index was calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. Overweight was defined as a BMI of 25.0 to 29.9 and obesity as a BMI of 30.0 or higher. In the 2003 from low income, rural regions of Mexico the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity was nearly 60% in woman and more than 50% in men, which was lower than the prevalence found in the nationally representative sample from 2000 which was 67% in woman and 61% in men.
 * High Prevalence of Obesity Among the Poor in Mexico **

Chris Cornejo-

=Cause-Specific Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity= The national health and nutrition examination survey took data from people that took the survey between 1971-1994 with mortality reports to 2000 as well as data on BMI and other covariates from NHANES 1999-2002 with cause of death information for 2.3 million adults 25 years and older. The results of which were measured using risk of CVD (cardio vascular disease) and cancer compared to various non cancer/ CVD deaths. The outcome of all the taken surveys showed that the underweight people had a higher deaths risk not associated with CVD and cancer related deaths, overweight participants were associated with decreased death risk of non related CVD and cancer related deaths, the obese participants had a higher risk of CVD and cancer related deaths. The total result was that different BMI increase the risk of cancer and CVD with a lower chance of non related cancer/CVD death.

Chris Cornejo-
 * The Changing Relationship of Obesity and Disability **

Recent studies had suggested that the obese population had been growing healthier since 1960 considering that there had been a decreased mortality rate and cardiovascular risk factors. The fact that the decreased mortality might have something to do with disability had to be tested to see if there was a trade off. This theory was tested on adults aged 60 and older with measured body mass index from 2 waves of the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. The end results of these tests indicated that there was much difficulty lifting 10 lb, getting up from an armchair and walking one-fourth mile the total versus the other group was an increased 5.4% functional impairment this was 1.78 times more than the non obese individuals. Over time, declines in obesity-related mortality, along with a younger age at onset of obesity, could lead to an increased burden of disability within the obese older population

Chris Cornejo- **Childhood obesity,prevalence, and prevention** Childhood obesity has reached new levels about 25% of U.S children are overweight and 11% are obese and 70% of obese adolescents grow up to become obese adults. It is believed that this is a cause of environmental factors, lifestyle preferences and cultural environment on the other hand it is believed that this may be from a slowly decaying physical activities, increased portion size and excessive sugar intake as well as fat intake. There are various causes of adolescent obesity one of which is diet in that at the cost of nutrition food has become energy rich and poor in nutrition, another cause is because the steadily decreasing amount of physical activity in all age groups including adolescents. Prevention of this can include spending more time doing physical activity, influencing diet in schools and not watching TV while eating can help prevent childhood obesity as to prevent bad habits from forming.
 * Ahtsham khan-**


 * Maternal overweight and obesity and the risk of congenital anomalies**

Evidence of the association between maternal overweight, maternal obesity, and congenital anomaly. Studies with an estimate of pregnancy or early pregnancy weight or body mass index and data on congenital anomalies were considered 39 were included in the systematic review and 18 in the meta-analysis. Data Extraction and Synthesis Information was extracted on study design, quality, participants, congenital anomaly groups and subtypes, and risk estimates comparing risk among overweight, obese, and recommended weight mothers were determined for congenital anomaly groups and subtypes for which at least 150 cases had been reported in the literature. Overweight and obesity were calculated for 16 and 15 anomaly groups or subtypes, respectively maternal obesity is associated with an increased risk of a range of structural anomalies maternal overweight is also implicated **. ** Obesity is a major public health and economic concern.

Analysis: Over the past few years there has been a trend that gradually decreases the amount of nutrition and exercise as a result of newer faster ways of producing food. There are many causes to obesity but the main reasons for it is lack of exercise and lack of nutrition and as a result a large percentage of adolescent obesity leads to adult obesity. With obesity comes disability as well for example unable to walk long distances and various daily activities. These risk factors have been increasingly growing as more surveys are taken since 1990's-2010. Among these obesity statistics lives a small portion from financial trouble for example a family that only has 60 dollars a week for groceries can only buy so many things that are cheaper and less healthy than that of a family that has more of an income. Another major factor that should be closely considered is the diet which is shown to do more than exercise alone given a poor diet/ exercise vs a better diet/less exercise and this can lead to many diseases as well as medical expenses. Overall the many risk factors involved in obesity is exponentially more than a person that is overweight or underweight and if change doesn't happen soon these problems will become as common as the common cold.

Works Cited The, Natalie S, PhD, et al. Online posting. //Association of Adolescent Obesity With Risk of Severe Obesity in Adulthood//. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. [].

Baker, Jennifer L, Ph.D., Lina W Olsen, Ph.D., and Thorkild I.A. Sorensen, M.D., Dr.Med.Sci. “Childhood Body-Mass Index and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Adulthood.” //New England Journal of Medicine//. Massachusetts Medical Society, 6 Dec. 2007. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. [|http://www.nejm.org/‌doi/‌full/‌10.1056/‌NEJMoa072515#t=articleBackground].

“Children’s Health.” //WebMD//. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. [].

Cleave, Jeane Van, MD, Steven L GOrtmaker, PhD, and James M Perrin, MD. “Dynamics of Obesity and Chronic Health Conditions Among Children and Youth.” //The journal of the American Medical Association//. American Medical Association, 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. [].

Dehghan, Mahshid, Noori Akhtar Danesh, and Anwar T Merchant. “Childhood obesity, prevalence and prevention.” //Nutrition Journal//. N.p., 3. Web. 29 Sept. 2011. [].

Fernald, Lia C, Phd, MBA, et al. “High Prevalence of Obesity Among the Poor in Mexico.” //The Journal of the American Medical Association//. American Medical Association, 2004. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. [].

Flegal, Katherine M, PhD, et al. “Prevalence and Trends in Obesity Among US Adults, 1999-2008.” //The Journal of the American Medical Association//. Ed. Katherine M Flegal, PhD, et al. American Medical Association, Jan.-Feb. 2010. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. [].

- - -. “Cause-Specific Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity.” //JAMA//. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2011. [].

Flegal, Katherine M, PHD, et al. “Cause-Specific Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity.” //JAMA//. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

Hirsch, David, MD. “Obesity in Children.” //webmd.com//. N.p., 25 Feb. 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. [].

Stothard, Katherine J, PHD, et al. “Maternal Overweight and Obesity and the Risk of Congenital Anomalies.” //The journal of The American Medical Association//. American Medical Association, 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. [].

Villareal, Dennis T, M.D., et al. “Weight Loss, Exercise or Both and Physical Function in Obese Adults.” //New England Journal of Medicine//. Ed. Krupa Shah, M.D., M.P.H. Massachusetts Medical Society, 31 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. .