Why are women losing the bulge battle?
Obesity is one of the country’s leading health problems.
Frances Traphagan MINNEAPOLIS — has been battling weight issues her whole life.
For years, the south Minneapolis mom struggled to balance work demands and motherhood. After every pregnancy, her weight problem grew. Her habit of eating on the run also tipped the scales in the wrong direction.
Finally, at 240 pounds, the 5-foot-3 Traphagan chose to have bariatric surgery at the Hennepin Bariatric Center and Obesity Program at Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis.
“It was my very last effort to try to lose weight,” she said.
She’d tried everything before that — from Weight Watchers to the Atkins diet to the grapefruit diet.
“I did have some success, but nothing was ever permanent,” she said.
After a national report this summer showed that women have surpassed men in obesity rates, doctors and obesity researchers are searching for answers to why women are struggling more than men.
For the first time, more than 40 percent of U.S. women are obese, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The nation as a whole continues to struggle with obesity, with 35 percent of men considered obese. But while men’s obesity rates appear to have stabilized, women’s are still rising, the CDC report shows.
Dr. Maria Collazo-Clavell, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic who works with overweight and obese patients, has been working in the obesity research field for 20 years. She said the recent findings give her pause about whether public health officials are taking the right approach to tackling obesity.
“All of that makes you question: Are you on the right track?” she said. “The data would say no.”
That so many women are obese is cause for alarm not only because of the increased health risks for them, but also for those around them, Collazo-Clavell said.
“That’s kind of the tip of the iceberg,” she said. Women are often the primary caregivers in a family, and their eating and activity habits can influence their children and others in their family.
An example of that ripple effect: Collazo-Clavell is starting to see some of her previous patients’ children and is working with them to help manage their obesity.
It’s difficult to pinpoint what is causing women to struggle more with obesity than men, but doctors say there likely are many factors at play.
Women typically have two times in their lives when they are at risk of gaining significant amounts of weight: childbearing (during pregnancy and after giving birth) and menopause.
Collazo-Clavell hears from many new mothers that they find meal planning and preparation tough after giving birth. Also of concern, she notes that women as a group are going into pregnancy heavier than they were 20 years ago.
It makes it harder to manage a healthy pregnancy weight if they’re already overweight, she said.
An epidemic
One of the country’s leading health problems, obesity can lead to serious diseases, including diabetes and heart disease.
Body mass index (BMI) is calculated by dividing weight (in kilograms) by height squared (in centimeters). Anyone with a BMI of 25 or more is considered overweight, while those with a BMI of 30 or more are obese.
For example, a woman of average height in the U.S. (5 feet 4) would be classified as obese if she weighs at least 175 pounds. An average height American man (5 feet 9) who weighs 203 pounds or more would be considered obese.
Dr. Guilford Hartley is medical director of the Hennepin Bariatric Center and Obesity Program, where 100 surgeries for weight management are performed each year.
He sees many more female patients than men. Part of the reason, he said, is that women are more likely to seek medical treatment for a weight issue than men.
“In our culture, when a man’s overweight, nobody pays too much attention,” he said. “But we have such an emphasis on being thin for women that we’re culturally forcing women to be more concerned about their weight than men.”
Constant fight
It’s been 10 years since Traphagan had a surgical band wrapped around her stomach to make it smaller. The band makes it possible to consume only 1.5 cups of food at a time. But it’s still possible to overeat, she said, which is why she had to learn how to eat healthfully to control her weight.
Today, she has poached eggs instead of doughnuts for breakfast and drinks plenty of ice water throughout the day. She has maintained a healthy weight.
“It’s been real hard, though. It’s not easy,” she said.
“I got down to 155 pounds. My goal weight is 124. I’m still working on that, and I hope to achieve that this year.”
As your kids go back to school, you may see another element added to the list of vaccines they have to have. The meningitis vaccine is one of two big changes in immunizations this year that parents need to know about. The other big change effects the flu vaccine.
Meningitis vaccine
For the first time, Ohio now requires a meningitis vaccine (meningococcal vaccine) for school. Effective for the new school year beginning in 2016, all students entering 7th grade and 12th grade must have the meningococcal vaccine. “This is not a new vaccine,” says Dr. Sherman Alter, medical director of the infectious disease division at Dayton Children’s Hospital. “It has been routinely recommended for the past 10 years. However, now it is required for school attendance.”
Why the change? “Bacterial meningitis can turn deadly in a matter of hours,” says Dr. Alter. “The initial symptoms mimic a cold or the flu — fever, headache, stiff neck — but it can progress quickly as it rapidly spreads through the bloodstream, causing inflammation of the protective coating of the brain and spinal cord.”
Experts say 10-15 percent of people who contract bacterial meningitis will die.
Of those who survive, 11-19 percent will suffer severe consequences, such as brain damage, hearing loss or nerve problems.
Getting your child this vaccine will help protect them.
Flu mist
In the coming months, it will also be time to get the flu vaccine. This year the CDC recommend that parents opt for the shot over the nasal mist.
The shot contains a dead virus; the nasal mist is a live, but weakened virus.
“In five major studies of FluMist in the 2015-16 influenza season, the mist was found to be less effective overall than the version that comes in the shot, especially with Influenza A/H1N1,” says Bethany Linegang, infection preventionist at Dayton Children’s. “Since researchers anticipate that those varieties will be the circulating strains again this year, they recommend the shot for the best protection against the flu this season.”
“Vaccines are safe and effective,” says Dr. Alter. “There are very few side effects and they are much less severe than having the illness would be. Making sure your children are fully vaccinated not only protects them from disease, disability and death, it helps protect the rest of the community as well.”
“The majority of our flu admissions last year were infants under the age of 6 months who are too young to be vaccinated,” says Linegang. “We can protect our most vulnerable populations, by making sure everyone in the family who can be vaccinated gets their shots on time.”