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Adult weight gain leads to illness, Harvard prof says

Adults should reach ideal body weight when they reach full maturity because significant weight gain later in life can lead to higher risk of life-threatening disease, a Harvard researcher told UA doctors, students and researchers Thursday.

"The general rule is most should only gain a few pounds after that weight or staying as close as they can," said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Weight gain during mid-life is not healthy at all."

A male's weight at age 21 and a female's weight at age 18 is a good yardstick for each person's ideal weight, he said.

Willett refuted the myth that gaining weight as a person ages is acceptable in a speech he gave to about 100 doctors, researchers and students at a University Medical Center auditorium.

"We're in the midst of an epidemic in this country," he said. "For both men and women there is a sudden upswing of weight gain in the '90s."

As body weight increases, the chance of suffering diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer and breast cancer increases.

"The greater the weight, the more the risk," Willett said.

He attributes the myth to the "creeping up" of weight guidelines.

"That's the exact problem with having such a high range, people could put on a lot of pounds and be in healthy range," he said.

Willett recommends that people would be better off in the lower range of ideal body mass index from 19 to 25. The range is 42 pounds per index number.

The ideal body weight from 1995 should have decreased, Willett said.

Body mass index is a person's height to weight ratio, which is calculated by taking the weight in kilograms and dividing it by the square of the height.

"The problem with guidelines is it's tough to draw the line," he said.

Willett said college freshmen gaining a sudden upswing of weight may put them on a path to an unhealthy lifestyle.

"The college 10 or 15 is generally not good and can be a health risk later in life," he said.

Although he realizes many students are lucky because they can eat anything without gaining weight, most of that changes when they hit about 30.

"Weight is a symptom that you're out of balance," he said. "Even a 10-pound gain is in the wrong direction."

Willett said it is not too late for college students to lose weight because it is not as hard when the increase is not too significant. He suggests increasing physical activity as a person grows older, instead of decreasing the amount of exercise and eating more.

The only exception for a person to gain weight would be the severely underweight, such as anorexics, he said.

Miriam Downey, a public health graduate student in epidemiology, said she did learn something new from the talk.

"I thought it gave me the same concrete data and good guidelines," she said. "It was a little bit surprising - the optional body mass index was lower than I thought."