Approaches to the analysis of fatness changes and continuity

As shown in repeat fatfold and weight measurements of 2,333 18.5–45 year old adults from the Tecumseh (Mich) Community Health Study, fractionation into fatness groupings ("lean,” “medium” and “obese") provides more detailed and useful information on individual changes in fatness than is revealed by the simple correlation (r). So analyzed, it can be shown that the majority of lean individuals of both sexes remain lean over nearly a decade but that a small proportion of the initially lean (about 12 percent in females) may actually become obese. Conversely, while initially obese individuals tend to remain fatter than the initially lean or the initially medium, a surprisingly large proportion (68 percent) of obese males are less than obese some ten years later. These more detailed analyses further suggest the possibility of a hard‐core “intractable” obese as contrasted with a labile or transient obesity‐grouping, a possibility of clinical interest and population relevance

Body weight · Environmental health · Lean body mass · Obesity · Population · Sociology · Demography · Medicine · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet · Endocrinology · Gerontology · Internal Medicine

• Comparison of three‐year weight and fat change distributions of lean and obese individuals

  Stanley M Garn, Jeffrey J Pilkington•Ecology of Food and Nutrition•1984

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• Relationship between initial fatness level and long‐term fatness change

  Stanley M Garn, Jeffrey J Pilkington et al.•Ecology of Food and Nutrition•1984

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• Continuities (tracking) in childhood cholesterol

  Stanley M Garn, Penelope Hopkins et al.•Ecology of Food and Nutrition•1980

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• Persistence of juvenile-onset obesity over eight years

  David S Freedman, Charles L Shear et al.•American Journal of Public Health•1987

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