FILE – A subject’s waist is measured during an obesity prevention study in Chicago, Jan. 20, 2010. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
Obesity rates in the United States are high and stable, but a new government study finds that the percentage of people who are severely obese, especially women, is higher than it was a decade ago.
According to a survey of nearly 6,000 people conducted between 2021 and 2023, the obesity rate in the United States is about 40%. About 1 in 10 people surveyed reported severe obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women are nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity.
While overall obesity rates appeared to have decreased slightly compared to the 2017-2020 survey, the change was not considered statistically significant, and the numbers were so small that it’s mathematically possible that the decline may not have actually occurred.
That means it’s too early to know whether new treatments for obesity, including blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound, will help ease the chronic disease epidemic linked to many health problems, according to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer who led the latest study.
“We can’t get such detailed information about prescription drug use and compare it to changes in obesity rates,” Emmerich said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to do that in the future.”
But perhaps most striking is the finding that overall obesity rates in the U.S. have not changed significantly in a decade, even as rates of severe obesity have risen from about 8% in the 2013-2014 survey to about 10% in the latest survey — a finding that comes after the U.S. had seen a rapid increase in obesity since the 1990s, according to federal studies.
The degree of obesity and severe obesity is determined by the body mass index, which is calculated based on height and weight. A person with a BMI of 30 is considered obese, while a person with a BMI of 40 or more is considered severely obese. Although BMI is considered a flawed tool, it is widely used by doctors to screen for obesity.
“The rise in severe obesity is even more worrying because it is the level of obesity most closely associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and reduced quality of life,” said Solveig Cunningham, a professor of global health at Emory University who specializes in obesity.
Cunningham, who was not involved in the new study, said it’s not clear why rates of severe obesity are rising or why they’re higher among women. Contributing factors could include hormonal influences, the effects of childbirth or other causes that need further study, she said.
The new study also found that obesity rates vary by education level: About 32% of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported being obese, compared with about 45% of college dropouts and people with less than a high school diploma.
The new report follows the release of data from U.S. states and territories earlier this month, which showed that obesity rates in 2023 vary widely by location, ranging from a high of more than 41% of adults in West Virginia to a low of less than 24% of adults in Washington, D.C. Obesity rates were highest in the Midwest and South.
Every state and territory in the U.S. has an obesity rate above 20 percent. The data showed that 23 states had more than one in three adults who were obese. No state had such high obesity rates before 2013, said Dr. Alison Goodman, who leads the CDC’s population health focus team.
A color-coded map of the United States tracking the change is gradually moving from green and yellow, associated with low obesity rates, to orange and dark red, associated with higher rates.
“Sometimes when I see all that red, it’s really disheartening,” Goodman said.
But she added that she sees hope in the recent emphasis on understanding obesity as a metabolic disease and new interventions, such as new classes of weight-loss drugs.
“The key is to prevent obesity in the first place, starting from childhood, and if obesity does occur, the aim should be to prevent further weight gain,” Dr Cunningham said.
“Obesity is really hard to reverse, both at the individual and population level,” Cunningham said. “I don’t think it’s surprising that we’re not seeing a downward trend in the prevalence of obesity.”
NEW MARTINSVILLE — Magnolia High School parents addressed the Wetzel County Board of Education Tuesday night.
