TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sikorski, Claudia
A1  - Luppa, Melanie
A1  - Weyerer, Siegfried
A1  - König, Hans-Helmut
A1  - Maier, Wolfgang
A1  - Schön, Gerhard
A1  - Petersen, Juliana
A1  - Gensichen, Jochen
A1  - Fuchs, Angela
A1  - Bickel, Horst
A1  - Wiese, Birgitt
A1  - Hansen, Heike
A1  - Bussche, Hendrik van den
A1  - Scherer, Martin
A1  - Riedel-Heller, Steffi Gerlinde
T1  - Obesity and associated lifestyle in a large sample of multi-morbid German primary care attendees
T2  - PLoS One
N2  - Background: Obesity and the accompanying increased morbidity and mortality risk is highly prevalent among older adults. As obese elderly might benefit from intentional weight reduction, it is necessary to determine associated and potentially modifiable factors on senior obesity. This cross-sectional study focuses on multi-morbid patients which make up the majority in primary care. It reports on the prevalence of senior obesity and its associations with lifestyle behaviors.
Methods: A total of 3,189 non-demented, multi-morbid participants aged 65–85 years were recruited in primary care within the German MultiCare-study. Physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and quantity and quality of nutritional intake were classified as relevant lifestyle factors. Body Mass Index (BMI, general obesity) and waist circumference (WC, abdominal obesity) were used as outcome measures and regression analyses were conducted.
Results: About one third of all patients were classified as obese according to BMI. The prevalence of abdominal obesity was 73.5%. Adjusted for socio-demographic variables and objective and subjective disease burden, participants with low physical activity had a 1.6 kg/m2 higher BMI as well as a higher WC (4.9 cm, p<0.001). Current smoking and high alcohol consumption were associated with a lower BMI and WC. In multivariate logistic regression, using elevated WC and BMI as categorical outcomes, the same pattern in lifestyle factors was observed. Only for WC, not current but former smoking was associated with a higher probability for elevated WC. Dietary intake in quantity and quality was not associated with BMI or WC in either model.
Conclusions: Further research is needed to clarify if the huge prevalence discrepancy between BMI and WC also reflects a difference in obesity-related morbidity and mortality. Yet, age-specific thresholds for the BMI are needed likewise. Encouraging and promoting physical activity in older adults might a starting point for weight reduction efforts.
Y1  - 2014
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/34734
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-347342
SN  - 1932-6203
N1  - Copyright: © 2014 Sikorski et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 9
IS  - (7):e102587
PB  - PLoS
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
ER  -