Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Epidemiology and Population Health

Age-specific changes in BMI and BMI distribution among Australian adults using cross-sectional surveys from 1980 to 2008

Abstract

Background:

Research efforts have focused mainly on trends in obesity among populations, or changes in mean body mass index (BMI), without consideration of changes in BMI across the BMI spectrum. Examination of age-specific changes in BMI distribution may reveal patterns that are relevant to targeting of interventions.

Methods:

Using a synthetic cohort approach (which matches members of cross-sectional surveys by birth year) we estimated population representative annual BMI change across two time periods (1980 to 1989 and 1995 to 2008) by age, sex, socioeconomic position and quantiles of BMI. Our study population was a total of 27 349 participants from four nationally representative Australian health surveys; Risk Factor Prevalence Study surveys (1980 and 1989), the 1995 National Nutrition Survey and the 2007/8 National Health Survey.

Results:

We found greater mean BMI increases in younger people, in those already overweight and in those with lower education. For men, age-specific mean annual BMI change was very similar in the 1980s and the early 2000s (P=0.39), but there was a recent slowing down of annual BMI gain for older women in the 2000s compared with their same-age counterparts in the 1980s (P<0.05). BMI change was not uniform across the BMI distribution, with different patterns by age and sex in different periods. Young adults had much greater BMI gain at higher BMI quantiles, thus adding to the increased right skew in BMI, whereas BMI gain for older populations was more even across the BMI distribution.

Conclusions:

The synthetic cohort technique provided useful information from serial cross-sectional survey data. The quantification of annual BMI change has contributed to an understanding of the epidemiology of obesity progression and identified key target groups for policy attention—young adults, those who are already overweight and those of lower socioeconomic status.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Finucane MM, Stevens GA, Cowan MJ, Danaei G, Lin JK, Paciorek CJ et al. National, regional, and global trends in body-mass index since 1980: systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 960 country-years and 9.1 million participants. Lancet 2011; 377: 557–567.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. AIHW DT, Waters A-M . A Growing Problem: Trends and Patterns in Overweight and Obesity among Adults in Australia, 1980–2001. AIHW: Canberra, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Health Survey First Results, 2011-12 Australian Bureau of Statistics (cat. no. 4363.0.55.001). Canberra, 2012.

  4. Levy DT, Mabry PL, Wang YC, Gortmaker S, Huang TT, Marsh T et al. Simulation models of obesity: a review of the literature and implications for research and policy. Obes Rev 2011; 12: 378–394.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Basu A . Forecasting distribution of body mass index in the United States: is there more room for growth? Med Decis Making 2010; 30: E1–E11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Kit BK, Ogden CL . Prevalence of obesity and trends in the distribution of body mass index among US adults, 1999-2010. JAMA 2012; 307: 491–497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Razak F, Corsi DJ, Subramanian SV . Change in the body mass index distribution for women: analysis of surveys from 37 low- and middle-income countries. PLoS Med 2013; 10: e1001367.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Walls HL, Wolfe R, Haby MM, Magliano DJ, de Courten M, Reid CM et al. Trends in BMI of urban Australian adults, 1980–2000. Public Health Nutr 2010; 13: 631–638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Dunstan DW, Zimmet PZ, Welborn TA, Cameron AJ, Shaw J, de Courten M et al. The Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab)–methods and response rates. Diabetes Res Clin Pract 2002; 57: 119–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Peeters A, Magliano DJ, Backholer K, Zimmet P, Shaw JE . Changes in the rates of weight and waist circumference gain in Australian adults over time: a longitudinal cohort study. BMJ Open 2014; 4: e003667.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Deaton A . Panel data from a time series of cross‐sections. J Econom 1985; 30: 109–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Lean ME, Katsarou C, McLoone P, Morrison DS . Changes in BMI and waist circumference in Scottish adults: use of repeated cross-sectional surveys to explore multiple age groups and birth-cohorts. Int J Obes (Lond) 2013; 37: 800–808.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Robinson WR, Keyes KM, Utz RL, Martin CL, Yang Y . Birth cohort effects among US-born adults born in the 1980s: foreshadowing future trends in US obesity prevalence. Int J Obes (Lond) 2013; 37: 448–454.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. National Heart Foundation of Australia. Risk Factor Prevalence Study, 1980 Canberra: Social Science Data Archives, The Australian National University, 2001.

  15. National Heart Foundation of Australia. Risk Factor Prevalence Survey, 1989 Canberra: Social Science Data Archives, The Australian National University, 2001.

  16. Australian Bureau of Statistics 1995 National Nutrition Survey Users' guide 1996. Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics (cat. no. 4801.0) Canberra.

  17. Australian Bureau of Statistics. National Health Survey: Users' Guide, 2007–08. Australian Bureau of Statistics (cat. no. 4363.0.55.001); Canberra, 2009.

  18. Mejer L, Siermann C . Income poverty in the European Union: Children, gender and poverty gaps. Stat Focus 2000. Population and Social Conditions. Theme 3,12. Eurostat, Luxembourg.

  19. Lilja M, Eliasson M, Stegmayr B, Olsson T, Soderberg S . Trends in obesity and its distribution: Data from the northern Sweden MONICA survey, 1986–2004. Obesity 2008; 16: 1120–1128.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Ball K, Brown W, Crawford D . Who does not gain weight? Prevalence and predictors of weight maintenance in young women. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2002; 26: 1570–1578.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Allman-Farinelli MA, Chey T, Bauman AE, Gill T, James WP . Age, period and birth cohort effects on prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australian adults from 1990 to 2000. Eur J Clin Nutr 2008; 62: 898–907.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Whitlock G, Lewington S, Sherliker P, Clarke R, Emberson J, Halsey J et al. Body-mass index and cause-specific mortality in 900 000 adults: collaborative analyses of 57 prospective studies. Lancet 2009; 373: 1083–1096.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. (ANPHA) ANPHA. State of Preventive Health 2013.Report to the Australian Government Minister for Health. report. Canberra: 2013.

  24. Sperrin M, Marshall AD, Higgins V, Buchan IE, Renehan AG . Slowing down of adult body mass index trend increases in England: a latent class analysis of cross-sectional surveys (1992-2010). Int J Obes (Lond) 2014; 38: 818–824.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Kahn HS, Cheng YJ . Longitudinal changes in BMI and in an index estimating excess lipids among white and black adults in the United States. Int J Obes (Lond) 2008; 32: 136–143.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Devaux M, Sassi F . Social inequalities in obesity and overweight in 11 OECD countries. Eur J Public Health 2013; 23: 464–469.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Ball K, Crawford D . Socioeconomic status and weight change in adults: a review. Soc Sci Med 2005; 60: 1987–2010.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Backholer K, Mannan HR, Magliano DJ, Walls HL, Stevenson C, Beauchamp A et al. Projected socioeconomic disparities in the prevalence of obesity among Australian adults. Aust N Z J Public Health 2012; 36: 557–563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Tanamas SK, Shaw JE, Backholer K, Magliano DJ, Peeters A . Twelve-year weight change, waist circumference change and incident obesity: the Australian diabetes, obesity and lifestyle study. Obesity (Silver Spring) 2014; 22: 1538–1545.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Bastien M, Poirier P, Lemieux I, Despres JP . Overview of epidemiology and contribution of obesity to cardiovascular disease. Prog Cardiovasc Dis 2014; 56: 369–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Adams KF, Leitzmann MF, Ballard-Barbash R, Albanes D, Harris TB, Hollenbeck A et al. Body mass and weight change in adults in relation to mortality risk. Am J Epidemiol 2014; 179: 135–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Australian Bureau of Statistics for access to the National Nutrition and National Health Surveys and the National Heart Foundation's Risk Factor Prevalence Study Committee and the Australian Social Science Data Archive for access to the Risk Factor Prevalence Studies. AH was supported by National Health and Medical Research Council grant (571372). The research was supported in part by the Victorian Government’s OIS Program. EG and KB were supported by the ARC Linkage grant (LP120100418) and an Australian National Preventive Health Agency grant (188PEE2011), EG was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award, KB was supported by a Post doctoral Research Fellowship from the National Heart Foundation of Australia (PH 12M6824), AP was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship (1045456) and the Baker IDI.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A Hayes.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on International Journal of Obesity website

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hayes, A., Gearon, E., Backholer, K. et al. Age-specific changes in BMI and BMI distribution among Australian adults using cross-sectional surveys from 1980 to 2008. Int J Obes 39, 1209–1216 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2015.50

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2015.50

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links