None of us feels good about the fact that the United States is in a weight crisis; at least a third of Americans are obese. But there may be hope, according to two studies by the CDC: The numbers have stopped rising.
Research released in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association showed no significant change in the Body Mass Index (BMI) numbers of American adults during the years from 2000-2008. (Earlier studies, which covered the years from 1976 to 1980, 1988 to 1994, and again from 1999 to 2000 had always shown an increase.) The BMI, which is a calculation based on a person’s height and weight measurements, generally classifies people with a number from 25 to 29.9 as overweight, and over 30 as obese.
"This was encouraging to see," CDC obesity expert Dr. Bill Dietz told TIME magazine. "The results don't mean we've beaten the epidemic, but they do suggest we've stopped the progression."
From USA Today:
About 34% of U.S. adults — almost 73 million people — were obese (roughly 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight) in 2008, up from 31% in 1999.
"The obesity trend appears to be slowing down, but the prevalence remains high and continues to be a critical national health concern," says Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics.
From the Los Angeles Times:
But it's not time to reach for the cookie jar yet. Though abundant messages about eating smaller portions and getting regular exercise may finally be registering, health experts say there's more to be done before the fattening trend is not merely halted but reversed -- more policy changes, community programs and support groups.
Americans are still among the chunkiest folks on the planet, with 68% of adults overweight or obese.
This is not a cause for complacency or celebration," said Dietz, who is director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the CDC, "but it is cause for modest optimism."
More from the TIME story:
“For kids, the signs are even more encouraging, partly because the trend up until now had been flat-out scary, with obesity rates tripling among school-age children since 1980. The CDC's new study looked at 3,281 subjects in the 2-to-19 age group and 719 subjects in the birth-to-2-years group and found that obesity rates have settled in at 9.5% for infants and toddlers and at 16.9% for 2-to-19-year-olds but have not been climbing. The only kids whose condition deteriorated further were those who were considered extremely obese — at or above the 97th percentile for weight. In most cases, these children were white and male.
"These are the heaviest boys who are shifting even further out," says CDC epidemiologist Cynthia Ogden, the lead author on the paper. "We didn't see that among the other kids, and we don't have an explanation for it yet."
More from USA Today:
Donna Ryan, president of the Obesity Society, a group of weight-loss researchers and professionals, says she believes it may have plateaued for now, but "to level off at 34% obesity is no great achievement. It's still very, very alarming. And the high rates of childhood obesity are likely to translate into higher rates of extreme obesity when those children reach adulthood."
Extra weight increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, some types of cancer and other health problems. Americans who are obese cost the country an estimated $147 billion in weight-related medical bills in 2008.
Obesity was relatively stable in the U.S. between 1960 and 1980 when about 15% of people fell into the category, and then it increased dramatically in the '80s and '90s.
Ogden has done other research showing the leveling off of obesity for women and children over the past few years.
The USA Today story:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-01-13-obesity-rates_N.htm
The Los Angeles Times story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-obesity14-2010jan14,0,6185851.story
The TIME story:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1953206,00.html
From the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704362004575000991306918812.html