Life Cycle Changes in Nutrition and Adult Mortality

Douglas Ewbank, University of Pennsylvania

The Barker hypothesis has focused attention on the long-term effects of differences between the environment a child experienced in the womb and the environment in which it finds itself living at young ages. However, changes in nutrition are not limited to the earliest ages. It is possible that changes during the early adult ages might have effects on health and mortality that are similar to those proposed by Barker. This paper will examine whether a transition from being underweight (BMI<21.5) at age 25 to overweight (BMI>25) at middle age (ages 45-68) is associated with increased risk of components of the metabolic syndrome, onset of diabetes and coronary heart disease and mortality. The analysis will be based on longitudinal data from the Honolulu Heart Program, a study of Japanese ancestry men born in 1900-1919 living on the island of Oahu in 1965.