Obesity, Overweight, and Their Life Course Trajectories in Veterans and Non-Veterans

Veterans comprise a large and growing segment of the US population. Results from national telephone surveys suggest higher prevalence of overweight among Veterans compared with demographically similar non‐Veterans, based on self‐reported height and weight. Using 1999–2008 data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we compared 3,768 Veterans and 21,974 non‐Veterans on: (i) several measures of adiposity based on direct anthropometry; (ii) life‐course of self‐reported BMI; and (iii) behaviors related to weight loss or maintenance. Whether Veterans were more likely than demographically similar non‐Veterans to be obese or overweight depended on the adiposity measure employed. On BMI, Veterans were about equally likely to be obese (30+ kg/m2), but more likely to be overweight (25–29.9 kg/m2) by both self‐report and by direct measurement (significantly so only by self‐report). On waist‐stature ratio, a roughly similar pattern was observed. On waist circumference, Veterans tended to have larger values than demographically similar non‐Veterans, with more Veterans in the largest two categories. But on dual‐photon X‐ray absorptiometry, Veterans were less likely to have 35+% body fat than non‐Veterans of similar age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Life‐course trends in self‐reported BMI suggested a possible burst of weight gain after military discharge. These results suggest that Veterans may, on average, have less excess body fat than non‐Veterans—a pattern not revealed by standard anthropometric measures.