Why African Women are Obessed

No population in the United States has a higher obesity rate than African American women, four out of five of whom are overweight or obese, according to a 2012 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the general adult population, 70 percent of adults are overweight or obese.

Julie Palmer is trying to do something about the problem. Palmer, a senior epidemiologist at BU’s Slone Epidemiology Center and a School of Public Health professor of epidemiology, is a coordinator of the Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS), which has been tracking the health of 59,000 African American women since 1995. Along with looking for the reasons why diabetes, breast cancer, and glaucoma plague black women, her team has explored the root causes of their obesity and suggested realistic ways they can alter their lifestyles to lose weight.

The Black Women’s Health Study found that women who consumed large amounts of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages were more likely to be overweight or obese.

And when the women were asked how often they ate out and what type of fast food they chose—burgers, pizza, Mexican, Chinese, fried chicken, or fried fish—those who frequently chose the first option had the most consequences. “We found that eating burgers from fast food or other restaurants definitely increased risk for obesity,” she says. “This was after controlling for soft drinks and after controlling for total fat. There is something about red meat; we don know exactly what it is. And then there is something about eating that type of meal and everything that goes with it. It was clearly worse than eating the fried fish, fried chicken, or the pizza.”

Childbearing also proved a factor in weight gain. In a 2003 paper published in Nature, Palmer and her colleagues reported that African American women who have children young, are overweight at the time of pregnancy, or gain an excess amount of weight during pregnancy have a higher prevalence of obesity compared to white women.