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Preferred term

mortality and obesity  

Definition

  • Obesity has been associated with physical disabilities at least since the days of Shakespeare when he penned the line “Falstaff sweats to death, and lards the lean earth.” Yet, it was not until the 1950s that life insurance companies began to recognize that obesity was an independent risk factor for death and diminished life expectancy and began to price policies accordingly. Since the 1950s, a multitude of epidemiologic studies have shown that being underweight, overweight, obese, or morbidly obese causes significant health problems and affects human longevity. [Source: Encyclopedia of Obesity; Mortality and Obesity]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/mortality_and_obesity

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