Obesity Linked To Increase Risk Of Death In Car Accidents

Drivers and passengers who are overweight to the point where they could be classified as medically obese are not just at risk an early death due to cardiovascular disease.  A recent study by the Emergency Medicine Journal chronicles how obese individuals are facing as much as 80 times more risk of death in a serious car accident when compared to those who are not overweight.

Vehicle safety equipment simply isn't designed with human extremes in mind, especially towards the larger end of the equation.  Smaller individuals are better protected due to crash test dummies that represent children during standardized testing, but no crash testing is performed using dummies as stand-ins for the obese.  As a result, seatbelts and airbags are not optimally positioned for anyone above a body mass index of 30.

The study also stresses that those who have been diagnosed with obesity may also display additional health issues such as diabetes, which could play a significant role in affecting their ability to recover from injuries suffered in a car accident.  Almost 36 percent of Americans could be labeled obese, which suggests that crash testing standards may have to be upgraded in order to better reflect reality.