Musculoskeletal disorders associated with obesity: a biomechanical perspective
Wearing, Scott C., Hennig, Ewald M., Byrne, Nuala M., Steele, Julie R., & Hills, Andrew P. (2006) Musculoskeletal disorders associated with obesity: a biomechanical perspective. Obesity Reviews, 7(3), pp. 239-250.
Despite the multifactorial nature of musculoskeletal disease, obesity consistently emerges as a key and potentially modifiable risk factor in the onset and progression of musculoskeletal conditions of the hip, knee, ankle, foot and shoulder. To date, the majority of research has focused on the impact of obesity on bone and joint disorders, such as the risk of fracture and osteoarthritis. However, emerging evidence indicates that obesity may also have a profound effect on soft-tissue structures, such as tendon, fascia and cartilage. Although the mechanism remains unclear, the functional and structural limitations imposed by the additional loading of the locomotor system in obesity have been almost universally accepted to produce aberrant mechanics during locomotor tasks, thereby unduly raising stress within connective-tissue structures and the potential for musculoskeletal injury. While such mechanical theories abound, there is surprisingly little scientific evidence directly linking musculoskeletal injury to altered biomechanics in the obese. For the most part, even the biomechanical effects of obesity on the locomotor system remain unknown. Given the global increase in obesity and the rapid rise in musculoskeletal disorders, there is a need to determine the physical consequences of continued repetitive loading of major structures of the locomotor system in the obese and to establish how obesity may interact with other factors to potentially increase the risk of musculoskeletal disease.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from and citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from theindexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
|Item Type:||Journal Article|
|Additional Information:||For more information, please refer to the journal's website (see hypertext link) or contact the author.|
|Subjects:||Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES (110000) > HUMAN MOVEMENT AND SPORTS SCIENCE (110600) > Exercise Physiology (110602)|
|Divisions:||Current > Research Centres > Centre for Health Research
Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Faculty of Health
Current > Institutes > Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
|Copyright Owner:||Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing|
|Deposited On:||31 Oct 2007|
|Last Modified:||29 Feb 2012 13:27|
Repository Staff Only: item control page