Wise Words on Weight
Understading why we gain weight, the pitfalls of doing so and how to safely loose weight and maintain a sensible lifestyle.
August/September 2004
by Walter C. Willett, M.D.
We are very pleased to launch this new nutrition column written by Walter C. Willett, M.D., chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Willett is a widely respected, independent scientist who has devoted his career to studying the complex connections between what we eat and our long-term health. He has been a leader of one of the largest and longest running studies of nutrition and health, begun in 1976 and ongoing with 121,000 participants. Here is our first installment, from Eat, Drink and Be Healthy by Walter C. Willett, M.D., with P.J. Skerrett. Copyright © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., N.Y.
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— Mother
Adding a few pounds here and there during adulthood seems innocuous enough. It has its own catchy moniker — middle-age spread — and was once considered a sign of prosperity and success. It also seems to be an inevitable part of aging, affecting most Americans. In reality, adult weight gain is neither inevitable, nor innocuous. In many cultures, gaining weight during adulthood just isn’t the norm.
Gaining more than a few pounds after your early 20s can nudge you down the path to chronic disease, and the more weight you gain, the harder the push will be. In two large, long-term Harvard studies, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, middle-aged men and women who had gained 11 to 22 pounds after age 20 were up to three times more likely to develop heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and gallstones as their counterparts who gained 5 pounds or less.
Weight Gain Can Lead to Chronic Disease
Three related aspects of weight — how much you weigh in relation to your height, your waist size and how much weight you gain after your early 20s — increase your risk for:
• a heart attack, stroke or other type of cardiovascular disease
• high blood pressure, high choles- terol and diabetes
• post-menopausal breast cancer and cancer of the endometrium, colon or kidney
• snoring and sleep disorders such as sleep apnea
• adult-onset asthma
• arthritis, infertility and gallstones
Weight sits like a spider at the center of an intricate, tangled web of health and disease. It isn’t a new idea, it isn’t sexy, and it certainly won’t land me a spot as the next fad diet guru on Oprah, but next to whether you smoke, the number that stares up at you from the bathroom scale is the most important measure of your future health.
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