CONICET (National Council of Scientific and Technical Research), Argentina.
Demography. 2010 Feb;47(1):79-96. doi: 10.1353/dem.0.0085.
Increasing levels of obesity could compromise future gains in life expectancy in low- and high-income countries. Although excess mortality associated with obesity and, more generally, higher levels of body mass index (BAI) have been investigated in the United States, there is little research about the impact of obesity on mortality in Latin American countries, where very the rapid rate of growth of prevalence of obesity and overweight occur jointly with poor socioeconomic conditions. The aim of this article is to assess the magnitude of excess mortality due to obesity and overweight in Mexico and the United States. For this purpose, we take advantage of two comparable data sets: the Health and Retirement Study 2000 and 2004 for the United States, and the Mexican Health and Aging Study 2001 and 2003 for Mexico. We find higher excess mortality risks among obese and overweight individuals aged 60 and older in Mexico than in the United States. Yet, when analyzing excess mortality among different socioeconomic strata, we observe greater gaps by education in the United States than in Mexico. We also find that although the probability of experiencing obesity-related chronic diseases among individuals with high BMI is larger for the U.S. elderly, the relative risk of dying conditional on experiencing these diseases is higher in Mexico.
肥胖水平的上升可能会影响到未来低、高收入国家的预期寿命增长。尽管在美国已经对肥胖相关的超额死亡率，以及更普遍的体重指数（BMI）水平进行了研究，但关于肥胖对拉美国家死亡率的影响的研究却很少，这些国家肥胖和超重的患病率增长迅速，同时还存在贫困的社会经济条件。本文旨在评估肥胖和超重对墨西哥和美国的超额死亡率的影响程度。为此，我们利用了两个可比较的数据集：美国的健康与退休研究 2000 年和 2004 年的数据，以及墨西哥的健康与老龄化研究 2001 年和 2003 年的数据。我们发现，墨西哥 60 岁及以上的肥胖和超重人群的超额死亡风险高于美国。然而，在分析不同社会经济阶层的超额死亡率时，我们发现美国的教育差距大于墨西哥。我们还发现，尽管美国老年人中 BMI 较高的个体患有肥胖相关慢性病的概率较大，但在墨西哥，这些人在患有这些疾病的情况下死亡的相对风险更高。
