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HEALTH

The Claim

In the Bogalusa Heart Study, about 25% of participants reached a healthy weight as adults and about 75% remained overweight or obese.

Verified by Lenz ·

The Short Version

The evidence does not support the claimed 25%/75% adult weight split in the Bogalusa Heart Study. Cohort-wide figures cited in the underlying literature are far lower than 75% overweight/obese in adulthood, including about 42% in one young-adult analysis and 57.7% overweight in another follow-up measure. The claim appears to misread subgroup tracking results as if they described all participants.

Caveats

  • Subgroup persistence data among overweight children or high-BMI quartiles cannot be treated as cohort-wide adult prevalence.
  • Different papers use different endpoints and definitions, such as overweight alone versus overweight plus obesity; combining them loosely can produce false percentages.
  • Some cited secondary or reposted sources are weaker than the peer-reviewed PubMed/PMC papers and should not drive a quantitative claim.

The Receipts

  1. Tracking of overweight status from childhood to young adulthood

    PubMed

  2. Relation of Childhood Obesity/Cardiometabolic Phenotypes to Adult Metabolic Syndrome: The Bogalusa Heart Study

    PMC

  3. Adolescent overweight is associated with adult overweight

    ScienceDirect

  4. Eating patterns and overweight status in young adults: the Bogalusa Heart Study

    PMC (NIH)

  5. Cardiovascular risk factors in a biracial community: the Bogalusa Heart Study

    PubMed

  6. Tracking and variability in childhood levels of BMI: The Bogalusa Heart Study

    CDC Stacks

  7. Risk Factors and Adult Body Mass Index Among Overweight Children in the Bogalusa Heart Study

    Pediatrics

  8. The relation of childhood BMI to adult adiposity: the Bogalusa Heart Study

    Academia.edu (Am J Clin Nutr reprint)

  9. Risk factors and adult body mass index among overweight children: the Bogalusa Heart Study

    PubMed

  10. Life Course Observations From the Bogalusa Heart Study

    Journal of the American Heart Association

+ 13 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Bogalusa Heart Study

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