Obesity rates plateau, show no sign of declining
January 19, 2012
After two decades of steady increases, U.S. obesity rates over the previous 12 years have remained at around 36% for adults and 17% among children, according to a CDC study in JAMA.
Data for the study came from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, which are compiled annually by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. The most recent data came from surveys with 6,000 adults and 4,000 children and teenagers who had their heights and weights measured in a mobile exam center in 2009 and 2010.
The study found that from 2009 to 2010, more than 78 million adults and almost 13 million children ages two to 19 were obese. Based on this data, the researchers found:
- Between 35% and 36% of men and women were obese;
- Obesity rates in men were similar across races, while 32% of white women were obese, compared with 59% of black women; and
- 17% of children and teens were obese, varying from 14% among whites to almost 25% among blacks.
Compared with data from 1999 to 2000, the numbers showed a less than 1% annual increase in obesity rates for men and no net increase in women. Overall rates also were similar across the decade for girls, with a slight increase in obesity among teenage boys, according to the findings.
CDC researcher Cynthia Ogden said, "It's good that we didn't see increases," but, "[o]n the other hand, we didn't see any decreases in any group."
Elbert Huang, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, said that even if obesity rates remain stable, there will be dramatic future increases in diabetes and associated costs (Parker-Pope, "Well," New York Times, 1/17; Tanner, AP/Boston Globe, 1/17; Pittman, Reuters, 1/17).
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