Is Obesity A Driving Hazard?

January 22, 2013

 Is Obesity A Driving Hazard?

We all know of the many downfalls of being obese.  The social implications, the comorbidities, the medical costs...the list is long!  Now you can add one more consequence.  According to researchers, obese drivers are more likely to die in a car crash than those who are of a normal weight.

A study released on Monday in the Emergency Medicine Journal included the review of data on accidents recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). Researchers selected accidents in which the vehicles were the same size and accumulated statistics on height and weight from the driver’s licenses of the individuals who were involved in the accidents. Seat belt usage, type of collision, time of the accident, air bag deployment and other factors were also recorded.

Authors of the study, Dr. Thomas M. Rice and Dr. Motao Zhu, concluded that the higher the BMI of the driver, the more likely he or she was to die in an accident. The authors say that further research is needed to understand the roll of comorbidities in injury outcomes. Education and improvement on seat belt usage amongst obese people is also needed.

“This adds one more item to the long list of negative consequences of obesity,” said the lead author, Thomas M. Rice, an epidemiologist with the Transportation Research and Education Center of the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s one more reason to lose weight.”

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