|
 About 41 percent of women and 35 percent of men are obese, according
to survey data collected as recently as 2014 and reported in one of
the studies.
A decade earlier, about 38 percent of women and 34 percent of men
were obese, the study found. Only the increase for women was large
enough to be sure it wasn’t due to chance.
Over this same period, obesity rates for teens rose from about 17
percent to 21 percent, CDC researchers report in the second study.
“The most recent data before this point showed no increases overall
in youth, men or women over the previous decade,” said Cynthia
Ogden, a CDC researcher who worked on both studies.
“These trends are not explained by changes in age or educational
levels in the population or by changes in the distribution of
race-ethnic groups in the population or changes in smoking status,”
Ogden added by email.
Globally, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, according to
the World Health Organization. Obesity increases the risk of heart
disease, diabetes, kidney complications, joint disorders and certain
cancers.
Both studies analyzed data from a nationally representative survey
of the U.S. population that includes questions about weight and
height. Researchers looked at participants’ body mass index (BMI), a
measure of weight relative to height, to assess trends in obesity
over time.
For adults, a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered healthy, 25 to
29.9 is overweight, 30 or above is obese and 40 or higher is
morbidly obese.
An adult who is 5’9” tall and weighs from 125 to 168 pounds would
have a healthy weight and a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An obese adult at
that height would weigh at least 203 pounds and have a BMI of 30 or
more.
Almost 6 percent of men and 10 percent of women have what’s known as
“class 3” obesity, with a BMI of at least 40 and the most severe
risk of health complications tied to their weight, the CDC study of
adults found.
If there’s a sliver of good news in all this data, it’s for the
youngest children, ages 2 to 5, the CDC youth study found.
For these kids, obesity rates declined from about 14 percent a
decade ago to 9 percent in the most recent survey.
[to top of second column] |
Over that period, obesity rates for children ages 6 to 11 dipped
slightly, but not enough to rule out the possibility that this was
due to chance.
One limitation of both studies is that people in surveys tend to say
they are taller and lighter than they really are, which can downplay
obesity rates calculated from BMI, the authors note. BMI also
doesn’t distinguish between fat and muscle.
Even so, the two studies suggest that huge investments to reverse
the U.S. obesity epidemic over the past three decades haven’t done
much to diminish the problem, Dr. Jody Zylke and Dr. Howard Bauchner,
deputy editor and editor-in-chief of JAMA, respectively, wrote in an
editorial.
“The rates among children and adults are driven by the same
factors,” said Dr. Lili Lustig, a family medicine researcher at
Cleveland Clinic in Ohio who wasn’t involved in the study.
Lack of exercise is part of the problem, and so is what people eat,
Lustig added by email.
“We have done a deplorable job of helping parents understand food as
a prescription for health,” Lustig said by email. “If a parent does
not understand the value of food choices, how can you expect their
children and the next generation to have any better understanding?”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1c9i5E4 Journal of the American Medical
Association, online June 7, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
