Government program tied to weight gain in adults

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A Mexican government program that offers cash assistance to encourage healthy habits may paradoxically result in excess weight gain and higher blood pressure in some adults, a study suggests.

The program, which gives impoverished families cash in exchange for attendance at annual medical check-ups and nutrition classes, has been held up as a model for the rest of the world.

But the new study, by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the World Bank, suggests that the program, called Oportunidades, may be having unintended consequences.

The researchers found that among nearly 3,700 adults who entered the program 5 to 6 years earlier, those who received larger cash amounts were more likely to be overweight or obese or to have elevated blood pressure.

For each doubling in cash amount over the years, the risk of being overweight or obese climbed by 41 percent to 57 percent -- even when a number of other factors, like the participants' education levels and household assets, were weighed.

Higher cash amounts were linked to a rise in adults' diastolic blood pressure, the second number in a blood-pressure reading.

There is no clear explanation for the findings, Lia C. H. Fernald and her colleagues report in the Journal of Nutrition. In past programs that focused on child health and development, they point out, Oportunidades appeared to cut the risk of obesity by improving the quality of children's diets.

It's possible, Fernald's team speculates, that many parents in the program have used the money to buy more fruit, vegetables and meat for their children, but not for themselves.

More studies are needed to understand the reasons for the current findings, according to the researchers.

"Oportunidades has been portrayed as a model for conditional cash transfer programs worldwide," the investigators write, "but the results reported here support the notion that the cash component of Oportunidades may be negatively associated with some adult health outcomes."

SOURCE: Journal of Nutrition, October 20, 2008.