4 minute read
British Cohort Report
Next Article
dAte of birth: APril 1970
ursula arens Writer; nutrition & Dietetics
Ursula has spent most of her career in industry as a company nutritionist for a food retailer and a pharmaceutical company. She was also a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation for seven years. Ursula helps guide the NHD features agenda as well as contributing features and reviews
if you feel that big brother is watching you, then you might just be overanxious and obsessive. but if you were born in april 1970, then your impression could be entirely correct: perhaps you are one of about 17,000 babies selected for life-long follow-up as part of the 1970 british Cohort Study.
The Centre for Longitudinal Studies based at the Institute of Education at the University of London manages three such population-tracking surveys (the others are the now-older group born 1958, and the still-young group born 2000), and collect data at regular intervals on every kind of life-as-it-is-lived topic affecting health and happiness.
In November 2013, a report on health and lifestyles in middle age was launched (a.k.a.1970 British Cohort Study age 42 survey – BCS42)). The findings document a feast of fatness and other health issues facing the group born in April 1970. The data is very high quality: it is time for serious discussion of the issues raised and the actions agreed. Dietitians to the rescue!
Firstly, the tools and mechanisms of BCS42. Of the 17,000 baby-recruits, nearly 10,000 42-years olds completed the survey interview carried out in the year to April 2013. The complete dataset was deposited with the UK Data Service in January 2014 and is now available for further analysis and dissection both for investigating developmental trends in the born-1970 group, but also for comparison with the born in 1958 and the 2000 groups.
Secondly, the results. Being obese was defined in 23 percent of men and 20 percent of women, which is an alarming increase in obesity of 16 percent in both men and women aged 42, who were born 12 years earlier in 1958. The obesity hierarchy was highest for Welsh women (27 percent) and lowest for English women (19 percent). But alarmingly, many people, especially men, seemed unaware or unconcerned about their excess weights. Of those classified as obese, twice as many men as women (50 vs. 25 percent) self-described themselves as slightly overweight (rather than ‘very’); an astonishing five percent of obese men, but only one percent of obese women suggested that they were the right weight.
The whole gender divide continued, with four times as many rightweight men than women expressing concern about being underweight. Being obese was strongly linked to being less likely to report good physical and mental health than those who were the right weight and those who were obese confirmed medical diagnoses of many health risks. Confirmed also in the age42 subjects, was the strong association between obesity and social class. Director of the BCS42 study, Dr Alice Sullivan observed that, “carrying excess weight is far more socially acceptable for men than for women and men will not respond to health messages about weight and obesity if they do not recognise that they are overweight.” Another gender divide related to the topic of exercise.
Men scored better. They were more likely to do any kind of activity, but were especially drawn to cycling and team sports; women did less and were drawn to walking-for-pleasure and yoga/pilates. Running was the activity associated with the lowest levels of obesity. Dr Sullivan observed that, “it may seem surprising that more men do vigorous exercise than women, even
though they are more likely to be overweight: this suggests that poor diet is a key factor affecting men’s weight in particular.” It also opens up the need to balance communication between the extremes of being fat and fit versus being not fat and not fit.
Results for diet were less detailed. Being busy and the easy availability of convenience foods are clearly documented. While 40 percent of the subjects ate home-cooked foods daily, nearly 20 percent of the subjects ate ready meals/takeaways at least several times a week. Being overweight seems connected to the more frequent choice of takeaway meals: one third of those who were overweight ate these at least weekly, compared to one fifth of those of the right weight. More than half of the subjects ate breakfast every day, but more than one in 10 reported ‘never’ for this meal.
One project presented at the launch of the BCS42 report at the Department of Health, was by Amanda Sacker, Professor of Lifecourse Studies at University College London. Looking at breastfed-or-not data from the cohorts born both in 1958 and in 1970, Professor Sacker calculated correlations into effects on social mobility (i.e. social classification of the adult subject vs their parent). After forensic matching of every possible other difference, a small but very consistent observation was made: breastfed babies had a two to three percent increased probability of being upwardly socially mobile. This stunning conclusion supports the strong encouragement to assume breastfeeding for every newborn whenever possible. More on the age 55 survey from the 1958 birth cohort can be found at: http://discover. ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=2000032. The next survey for the 1970 birth cohort is due is 2016. Hopefully, dietitians will be able to contribute to downward obesity statistics for BCS46 compared to the current data reported.
