Soldiers in High Altitude Locations Less likely to become Obese: Study

Overweight military officials are less likely to become obese when posted at high-altitude duty stations, according to a study.

Physical fitness, endurance and flexibility are essential for jobs in the defense forces. Obesity is a serious issue that can hamper performance, operational capacity and also downgrade the ranks of officers. According to the study, diagnosis of weight increase alone accounts for $1 billion annual health care cost to the Department of Defense Health System.

 Researchers used data from the Defense Medical Surveillance System involving 100,000 members with a minimum service of two years at the U.S. Army and Air force between 2006 and 2012. Their study mainly assessed the risk of obesity in overweight officials during a single assignment in high altitude locations. They also recorded other variables like BMI of the participants at the time of enlistment, age, ethnicity, sex, occupation and duration in the service.

It was observed that service members had 41 percent reduced chances of becoming obese when posted in high altitude regions. They found geographical factors and altitude directly impacts a person's body weight. Health conditions like hypoxia or insufficient supply of oxygen commonly occur in high altitude areas making them to consume less amount of food. This results in drastic reduction of their weight thus, preventing obesity.

"This is the strongest evidence to date that moving to high altitude provides long-term obesity protection," said Air Force Captain Jameson Voss study author and physician at the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in a press statement.

In addition, the authors compared the prevalence of obesity in military members with obesity rates in civilians. The analysis revealed that civilians who lived in low altitude regions were more susceptible excessive weight gain and obesity risk than military officials.

"As a large uniform population with extensive and available demographic, location, health and job related records, the military provides an unparalleled source for investigation of residential health effects," Capt. Voss said. "There are stronger implications for understanding the causal effect of location because service members do not freely choose where to live, but are administratively assigned to these locations."

More information is available in the journal PLOS ONE.

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