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How will more obesity and less smoking affect life expectancy?
How will more obesity and less smoking affect life expectancy?
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue in brief (Center for Retirement Research)
- Author(s):
- Preston, Samuel H., author
Stokes, Andrew, author
Mehta, Neil K., author
Cao, Bochen, author - Contributor(s):
- Boston College. Center for Retirement Research, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Chestnut Hill, MA : Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, January 2014
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Life Expectancy -- trends
Mortality
Obesity -- mortality
Smoking -- mortality
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Personal behaviors can have a major influence on how long people live. Two especially damaging behaviors are smoking and the poor nutrition and exercise habits that result in obesity. Estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that, in 2000, 15 percent of U.S. deaths were caused by obesity and 18 percent by smoking. But obesity is on the rise while smoking is on the decline. The question is whether the benefits from less smoking will outweigh the harm from rising obesity. This brief, based on a recent study, projects how changes in obesity and smoking will impact life expectancy in 2040.2 The discussion proceeds as follows. The first two sections describe the methodologies for estimating the impact of obesity and smoking on mortality rates and for projecting how the prevalence of these behaviors will change over time. The third section presents the results, expressed as changes in future life expectancy. The final section concludes that, overall, the benefits of reduced smoking will trump the damage from increased obesity. However, the results differ by gender, with men showing a solid net gain, while women see only a small improvement.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (6 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101709995 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101709995