Calculating obesity's toll is more than a number

The CDC is considering all the evidence in determining the effects of risky behaviors on the nation's health before setting goals.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Dec. 20, 2004.

Washington -- Although its 400,000 tally was probably a bit too high, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are still certain that poor diet and physical inactivity do lead to nearly that many deaths each year in the United States.

CDC experts admitted last month that they made a computational error in coming up with the 400,000 figure for an article on actual causes of death that appeared in the March 10 Journal of the American Medical Association.

A new figure has been sent to JAMA and is being scrutinized there, said the CDC's Chief Science Officer Dixie E. Snider, MD, MPH. But until it is published, CDC officials are mum on the subject.

However, they did say that poor diet and physical inactivity, which are factors that lead to obesity, would almost certainly retain the No. 2 spot in actual causes of death in the nation.

The latest data from the CDC's 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show that nearly one-third of all adults are classified as obese and the number of overweight children continues to increase.

Obesity's impact on health was also the focus of a recent summit meeting convened by the AMA. "It's a very rare part of medicine that is not impacted by obesity," said Melvyn Sterling, MD, summit moderator and chair of the AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs.

Among its recommendations are that doctors become role models for physical activity and healthy eating and that body mass index be promoted as the fifth vital sign in physical exams.