What on earth has being overweight got to do with being in debt?
They might not seem connected, but in fact, Dr. Eva Münster from the University of Mainz, Germany, and an international team of researchers have recently demonstrated that there is a significant association between being deeply in debt and the likelihood of being overweight.
Dr. Münster’s research was aimed at assessing the health status of individuals who are significantly in debt and their access to and use of health services. The number of people carrying serious levels of personal debt has risen dramatically in both Europe and the United States in recent years, and the current worldwide economic crisis increases that number every day. In Germany alone, more than 6 million people are estimated to owe more money they can afford to pay back and are facing serious cutbacks in their standard of living. The fear is that adequate health care may be one of the prime targets for cutbacks. As healthcare costs continue to rise and charity-based healthcare organizations also suffer from the economic downturn, access to healthcare may be limited for people who are financially strapped.
Dr. Münster’s report, “Over-indebtedness as a marker of socioeconomic status and its association with obesity,” was published in August 2009 in the journal BMC Public Health. She and her colleagues compared two separate study groups:
- 949 people who had consulted debt-counseling services were surveyed anonymously. This group was classified as “over-indebted.”
- 8318 adults who responded to a telephone survey that addressed a variety of health, economic and quality-of-life issues. This group was classified as “not over-indebted.”
Comparable information about age, sex, income, education, body mass index (BMI, an index of overweight that is based on a person’s height and weight), smoking history, and depression was gathered for both groups. The combined study sample totaled 9080 people, after those for whom no BMI data was available were excluded.
Participants were asked to report their height and weight, and that information was used to calculate their BMI. World Health Organization standards were used to classify individuals from both groups; people were rated as overweight if their BMI was higher than 25, and as obese if their BMI was over 30. The group of people who were in need of debt counseling were classified by definition as “over-indebted.” The researchers then performed a series of analyses to determine whether there seemed to be a significant correlation between weight and debt among these people.
The statistics
Among the study subjects, people deeply in debt were statistically more likely to be:
- younger;
- less educated;
- lower income;
- depressed;
- smokers;
- overweight or obese.
Men and women were equally likely to be in debt.
In the study group, it was also noted that the overweight people were more likely to be:
- male;
- over 40 years old;
- depressed.
People with more education, higher incomes, or who smoked were less likely to be overweight or obese.
The implications
The study results showed that people deeply in debt had a higher risk of obesity than most other people. And that increased risk did not seem to have anything to do with an individual’s overall socio-economic status as judged by traditional measures. Education, income, sex, age, depression and smoking levels–none of these factors seemed to explain this higher risk.
Why is it, then, that being in debt makes it more likely that a person will be obese?
One factor is that people in debt have less money to spend on daily needs and are less able to afford or even get access to healthy foods. People with limited funds can easily gravitate toward consuming more of cheaper and widely available “junk” foods. Because these foods tend to be high in fat and sugar, they can be more filling and immediately satisfying than a handful of carrots or a piece of fresh fruit.
People also often turn to these kinds of foods in times of stress and depression as a form of comfort food or surrogate gratification (like smoking). But while smoking is associated with lower weight, convenience foods and junk foods are big contributors to obesity. Owing money you can’t pay is most certainly stressful. Stress causes secretion of glucocorticoids (GC), a class of steroid hormones. GC stimulate drive for and ingestion of “comfort foods” and have been linked to increased food consumption, according to studies by Dr Dallman. So perhaps it is not so surprising to find that over-indebted people are more likely to be either overweight.
When debt causes people to cut back on spending, too often the things they cut are likely to be health-related. Membership at a health club or gym may be classed as a “frill” to be eliminated, but if it means that person is less likely to keep active and get exercise, it can have a negative impact on both health and weight. Lower quality foods are unfortunately often less expensive than healthy foods, and people who live in depressed areas or have limited transportation can find it hard to get to full-service or specialty markets where fresh foods are available.
It’s not a new observation that poverty and lower socioeconomic status often go hand-in-hand with poor nutrition and increased obesity. But debt has not been traditionally included as one of the markers of economic wellbeing. Dr. Munster’s study suggests that this factor needs to be taken into consideration in understanding people’s health risks–particularly in these days of rising debt and financial strain.
Matt Denos is a biologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. As a research scientist he closely follows the relevant scientific literature and enjoys writing articles that contain newsworthy information in the field of nutrition, diet and obesity. His website contains information on weight loss programs and offers Nutrisystem promotion codes and discount coupons for BistroMD, two diet plans available in the US.
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