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According to a new research, women who are obese during their middle age have lesser chances of enjoying a healthy old age.
The study put forwards that women having a higher BMI in their middle ages are more prone to the development of chronic diseases like cancer and coronary heart disease and poor quality of life.
Oscar Franco, clinical professor of public health at Warwick Medical School conducted the study along with researchers from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.
According to the research, for each kilo a woman gains from 18 years, the chances of the woman enjoying a healthy age diminishes by 5%.
The study also found out that women who were obese at 18 continuously gained weight as they grow older and they were more prone to the development of chronic medical conditions.
The research team used the Nurses' Health Study, which has gathered data from more than 1,20,000 female registered nurses living in 11 US states since 1976.
The follow-up questionnaires were dispatched every two years for updating the information related to the development of any medical conditions and lifestyle factors.
Franco said those study participants who had reached the age of 70 and were free of major chronic disease, had no major impairment of cognitive function and no major limitation of physical function were considered examples of 'successful aging.'
The study was published in the Wednesday edition of the British Medical Journal.
