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Show tuO CD 53 e CD 100 n 80 - 60 - 40 - 20 - 0 ---------Not Exercising ¦ Overweight or Obese 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 Year 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Figure 1. Percentage of Utah Adults Who Do Not Exercise and/or Are Overweight or Obese. Utah BRFSS 1989-2000. 25) (Figure 1). Although the first federal guidelines defining "overweight" were not released until 1998, this definition was used consistently for the trend data in this report. The percentage of Utah adults who are overweight increased from 42.9 percent in 1990 to 54.1 percent in 2000 (a = 0.4; p<.0001). Furthermore, in each year shown in Figure 1, roughly three of four Utah adults did not exercise, with only minor intracensal fluctuations (Note: Percentages include diagnosed and non-diagnosed adults. Weight status and exercise status are not mutually exclusive). Being overweight and not exercising are independent risk factors for diabetes. Those who are both overweight and not exercising are at a substantially higher risk than those with just one of the risk factors. Almost 35 percent of non-diagnosed Utah adults are both overweight and not exercising. It can be argued that increases in both diabetes and obesity, along with the sustained high level of adults not exercising, are due to a general lack of awareness regarding the very serious nature of diabetes. Despite the pervasive evidence of diabetes-related complications and deaths, less than 60 percent of non-diagnosed Utah adults view diabetes as a very serious health condition. Only with that recognition would people be willing to adopt a lifestyle necessary to lower their risk. At the most fundamental level, lifestyle interventions could be ineffective until people view diabetes as a very serious health condition. Accordingly, it would be expected that those not perceiving diabetes as a very serious health condition would be more likely to engage in a high-risk lifestyle (both being overweight and not exercising), than those viewing it as a very serious condition. A related question is whether the nature of the relationship does or does not vary across relevant subgroups. This study, therefore, examines the nature of the relationship between perceived seriousness of diabetes and high-risk lifestyles (i.e., being overweight and not exercising) for two comparison groups of non-diagnosed Utah adults, i.e., those perceiving diabetes as not very serious and those perceiving diabetes as very serious. Secondly, it seeks to determine whether the relationship between perceived seriousness of the disease and high-risk lifestyle varies across gender and age. Data and Methods This report is based on data from the Utah Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), an annual nationwide survey of adults 18 and over, conducted under the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This survey system has been used in Utah since 1984 to collect data on preventive health practices and risk factors associated with chronic disease. For calendar years 1998 through 2000, the Utah Diabetes Control Program (UDCP) appended 12 questions to three-month sub-samples of the BRFSS. These questions were asked of Utah adults who reported never having been told by a health care professional that they had diabetes. For this report, the three years of data from the sub-samples were pooled, generating a sample of 2,052 Utah adults who had not been diagnosed with diabe- Utah's Health: An Annual Review Volume VIII |