It’s the time of year when many people could use some additional motivation to continue working toward their New Year’s resolutions. I found this post on the New York Time’s Well blog. It contains some great evidence about why it’s important to keep weight-loss resolutions.
The post , based on a review in the Emergency Medicine Journal , examines whether people who are obese are more likely to be injured or killed in a traffic accident.
The answer is yes. The researchers reviewed data on more than 40,000 traffic accidents reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. All the accidents included in the review involved vehicles approximately the same size. Their final analysis included 3,400 accidents involving more than 6,800 drivers.
They categorized drivers into four groups based on body mass index, which they calculated from height and weight information recorded on drivers’ licenses. They considered other factors including seat-belt use, time of day, whether the drive had been using alcohol, and the type of accident.
The review found that obese drivers were more likely to die from injuries sustained in a traffic accident compared to normal weight drivers in the same type of accident. While the reasons are not clear, the authors speculated that seat belts don’t fit obese people as well as normal weight individuals, and obese people are more likely to be in poorer health before the accident.
The take-home message: Maintaining a healthy weight is an important health goal for many reasons.
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