Trajectories of weight change from late adolescence to late middle age for lean and obese individuals

To identify and better understand trajectories of individual weight change associated with increasing age, we analyzed longitudinal data from a cohort of older Americans (171,711 men and 122,563 women). Subjects entered the cohort in 1996 at a mean age of 62.5 years and they reported current height and weight, and weight at ages 18, 35, and 50 years. At study entry in 1996, prevalences of overweight and obesity among men were 49.6% and 19.9%,...