Obesity still rising among US adults, women overtake men

[geeezer]

TweetIn this Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, file photo, an overweight man rests on a bench in Jackson, Miss.© Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo In this Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, file photo, an overweight man rests on a bench in Jackson, Miss. NEW YORK (AP) — Obesity is still rising among American adults, despite more than a decade of public-awareness campaigns and other efforts to get people to watch their weight, and women have now overtaken men in the obese category, new government research shows.

For the past several years, experts thought the nation's alarming, decades-long rise in obesity had leveled off. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday that the obesity rate has climbed to nearly 38 percent of adults, up from 32 percent about a decade earlier.

"This is a striking finding" and suggests that a situation that was thought to be stable is getting worse, said Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert at George Washington University.

But another authority, the University of North Carolina's Barry Popkin, urged caution, saying the participants selected for the study may not have been representative of the nation as a whole.

Experts said they had no explanation for why the obesity rate appears to be rising.

The report, based primarily on a survey conducted in 2013-14, also found a tipping of the scales toward women. Obesity rates for men and women had been roughly the same for about a decade. But in the new report, the rate was significantly higher for women, at 38 percent, compared with 34 percent for men.

Obesity — which means not merely overweight, but seriously overweight — is considered one of the nation's leading public health problems. Until the early 1980s, only about 1 in 6 adults were obese, but the rate climbed dramatically until it hit about 1 in 3 around a decade ago.

The new figures come from a regular government survey that involves not only interviewing people about their girth but also actually weighing them. Because of that, it is considered the gold standard for measuring the nation's waistline.


AP Photo: HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL 12:01 A.M., THURSDAY NOV. 12: Chart shows obesity rates; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76 mm;© AP Photo HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL 12:01 A.M., THURSDAY NOV. 12: Chart shows obesity rates; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76 mm;
However, it has about 5,000 participants each year — far fewer than some other federal surveys that ask about weight. Generally, it can be harder to draw reliable national conclusions from a smaller survey.

The news comes after years of government anti-obesity campaigns to encourage people to eat better and exercise. Also, soda consumption has dropped in recent years, and fast-food chains have adopted healthier menus.

New federal rules have also been adopted to remove artificial trans fats from grocery store foods and to require chain restaurants to post calorie counts, though those have not gone into effect yet.

The widening gap between men and women seems to be driven by what's happening among blacks and Hispanics, said the study's lead author, the CDC's Cynthia Ogden.

Obesity rates for white men and white women remain very close. But for blacks, the female obesity rate has soared to 57 percent, far above the male rate of 38 percent. The gender gap is widening among Hispanics, too — 46 percent for women, 39 percent for men.

The report also looked at obesity in children but did not see much change. For young people ages 2 to 19, the rate has been holding at about 17 percent over the past decade or so.

Health officials have been especially focused on obesity in kids, who are the target of the Let's Move campaign launched by first lady Michelle Obama in 2010.

A CDC report last year noted one possible glimmer of hope: a decline in obesity among children ages 2 to 5. Their rate had fallen to about 8 percent in the 2011-12 survey, down from 14 per cent a decade earlier.

In a piece of good news, the new, 2013-14 report suggests that the decline among toddlers was real and not a statistical fluke. The rate was found to be holding pretty much steady around 9 percent.

The CDC measures obesity by calculating Body Mass Index, a ratio of weight to height. For adults, a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is overweight, and 30 or higher is obese. According to CDC definitions, a 5-foot-10 man is overweight at 174 pounds and obese at 209.

[LittleTom]

TweetThey make it so easy and affordable to be overweight. Not that's no excuse but all the drive throughs, convince stores..... And for the most part the crap food is cheap. You can get a ton of McDonald's compared to the price of a couple of frozen chicken breasts at the store.t

[animal87]

TweetIdk. I can cook at home for myself for a whole day compared to what I would have to eat at mcdonalds for one meal. My bmi on those machines was 25 or 28 something like that at my doc lol. I think I look skinny right now. Theres no way those thing are accurate or at least for someone who lifts.

[guns01]

Tweetthe hand held machines are absolute garbage if you have any amount of significant muscle mass at all. the bmi is also freaking garbage as well and a piss poor indicator of actual health. where is the evidence? well your guys with pot bellies and high ab fat levels may land in a good bmi on the chart yet they are walking health disasters in terms of heart disease diabeetes(sp) and other health issues. yet on that stupid scale they are usually in normal ranges. i say at the end of the day for a normal person moderation is key along with exercise as long as have no issues or diseases. if you dont have enough self discipline to do some form of exercise then you have to be more stringent with your eating but again if you are to lazy to workout then you are also going to be to lazy to eat good. that is where the obesity epidemic comes into play

[Dzone]

TweetDamn thats nuts. When I was in grade school, we had one maybe 2 kids who were obese. Now days, theyre all mostly fat . Sad what the food industry has done with the brainwashing of advertising. People have literally been brainwashed into believing that a good healthy meal is a bacon double cheeseburger, a large order of fries, a large coke and oh dont forget desert-brownies for desert. lol Thats what peoploe think is a meal. They dont know of any other way . Brainwashed . No wonder every body is fat

[guns01]

Tweet

Damn thats nuts. When I was in grade school, we had one maybe 2 kids who were obese. Now days, theyre all mostly fat . Sad what the food industry has done with the brainwashing of advertising. People have literally been brainwashed into believing that a good healthy meal is a bacon double cheeseburger, a large order of fries, a large coke and oh dont forget desert-brownies for desert. lol Thats what peoploe think is a meal. They dont know of any other way . Brainwashed . No wonder every body is fat

dzone if you actually sit back and think about it you really cant say that. if you look back over time where people sat down together for 2 out of 3 meals per day, they had a meat a starch and vege and usually some form of pastry. i think back to my childhood growing up and eating at my house and both sets of grand parents. that's how it was for every meal and the starch was both a potato or something like that and then a dinner roll or biscuit. bacon fat back sausages etc..... where all meats that were also commonly consumed. now here is a breakdown of what i can remember and keep in mind i am from the south and spent my entire life in the south:

breakfast:
gravy and biscuits w/sausage on the side
maybe a small cinnamon roll or stinky bun alongside or another biscuit with apple butter or jelly/jam
lunch:
whatever the school or parents packed for the day and it did contain some form of dessert. the school lunches we had where institutionalized style food so i know it was full of all kinds of nasty garbage at the time as well.
dinner:
pork chops, cubed steak or some type of meat
baked potato mashed potatoes or some form of pasta
rolls or bread of some sort
green beans collards spinach with fat back in them for flavor. maybe a ham bone also
slice of cake, brownie cookie or a leftover biscuit from breakfast w/ jelly or jam

now this was the norm for me. i was a skinny ass kid until high school when i started getting into bodybuilding. i think the big difference really isnt the foods cause god almighty we ate fat back lard and all kinds of other horrible stuff day in and day out. i think the difference today is everyone sits on their fat asses and dont do dick. if you arent moving around you really arent burning anything off. that's the only thing i can think of. hell my grand father was crushed in the coal mines and could barely get around at all and the dude may have weighed 180lbs when he died and my family still eats like that today. so something in our research methods isnt jiving to me

[animal87]

TweetI think guns is about right on that part. Thats along the lines of what I would have ate, but I was a chubby kid until I got old enough to work then started working out a few years later. I ate the same way just leaned out bc I started doing physical things. There weren't many fat people in school with me either, but then most of them would have been doing some kinda work in a garden or farm like I did too.

I know one thing too. It's younger people sit around and play video games, tv. etc.. alot more. There was the old Nintendo's when I was a kid but that got old in a hour or 2 lol. So all our hobbies were more physical, sports, hunting/fishing etc..

[Yohimbe]

TweetI'm from the south as well and my diet growing up was exactly what Guns listed. I was a super skinny kid, but I was also always out playing, riding my bike, swimming, you name it. It's like as technology advances, people get lazier and with that comes more obesity. Kids now days would rather spend time inside playing sports games on whatever game console they have instead of actually going outside and playing the physical sport. I also see a lot of parents now days using technology as the babysitter, which just conditions kids from day one to rely on technology for their entertainment instead of getting up, going outside and playing. If this keeps up, I can see the trend getting worse.