Obese Teenage Women More Likely to Be Infertile

Recently a study called Women's Health Across the Nation was conducted by the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, supervised by Alex J. Polotsky, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and women's health. Study proved that females who overweight or obese (with body mass index 25 or more) while teenagers were more likely to have infertility related problems later in life. What is interesting in this research that the obesity and infertility relation proved to be true despite controlling weight later in life.

The study Women's Health Across the Nation included more 30 hundred women who were in age group from 42 to 52, and the study was researching whether their weight in teenage years was associated with becoming biologically pregnant later in life. Women reported their BMI (body mass index) (Body mass index can be easily calculated by dividing weight in pounds with height in inches, multiplied with height in inches, and them multiplying everything by 703; or by dividing weight in kilograms with height in meters, multiplied with height in meters). If your BMI is under 18, that means you are underweight; if your BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9 you are normal; if your BMI is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight, while if you BMI is over 30, you fall into group of obese. The same measurement was used in the study.

The study reports the following: more than 16% of examined women (527 in numbers) had never delivered a baby and 23% of examined study population said they had a history of infertility. It is important to bring up that teenage obesity was closely related with obesity later in life. The research proved that women who were obese in their teenage years have significantly higher chance to suffer from fertility related problems. Obesity was much more constant variable, comparing to all other variables included, such as marital status, ethnicity, nongestational amenorrhea history, or socioeconomic status. This study is pioneer in this field: it directly proves that obesity in women is closely related to infertility later in life.