Study: Over 2/3 of Americans Are Overweight or Obese

Over 2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese, according to recent estimates.

“Using the most recent data in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2007-2012), we updated the prevalence of overweight and obesity by sex, age, and race/ethnicity and compared the values with those of the earlier study,” explained the authors of the letter.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Study: Biomarkers In Urine Could Predict Obesity
Office Workers Should Stand For 2 Hours a Day
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For their research, the authors collected data from 15,208 men and women (aged ≥ 25 years) in a sample that represented 188 million adults.

Researchers defined overweight as a body mass index (BMI) between 25.0 and 29.9. Further obesity was characterized by having a BMI of 30.0 and above, and was divided into 3 separate classes: 30.0 to 34.9 (class 1), 35.0 to 39.9 (Class 2), and ≥ 40 (class 3).

Using data from the 15,208 study participants, researchers estimated that 39.96% (36.3 million) men and 29.74% (28.9 million) women were overweight, while 35.04% (31.8 million) men, and 38.84% (35.9 million) women were obese.

"The rising trends in overweight and obesity warrant timely attention from health policy and health care system decision makers," the researchers concluded.

The complete study is published in the June issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

-Michelle Canales Butcher

Reference:
Yang L, Colditz GA. Prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States, 2007-2012. JAMA Intern Med. 2015 June [epub ahead of print] doi: 0.1001/jamainternmed.2015.2405.