Are Obesity Rates in a Lull?

by Ryan Halvorson

Making News:

A study released last November by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that the number of women who are obese in the United States seems to have hit a plateau, and men’s obesity rates may be leveling as well. However, the CDC concedes that U.S. adults aged 20 and older are still grappling with high levels of obesity at 34%.

The report, “Obesity Among Adults in the United States—No Change Since 2003–2004,” is the most recent analysis based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, conducted by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Obesity rates have increased over the past 25 years, and among men, rates increased between 1999 and 2006. However, there was no significant change in obesity prevalence between 2003 and 2006 for either sex.

“Since 1999, there appears to have been a leveling off in obesity among women, but the trend is less clear among men,” said Cynthia Ogden, a CDC researcher and lead author of the study, in a press release. “We do know, however, that the gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years, with men catching up to the higher rates among women.”

The report also revealed the following:

More than one-third of U.S. adults—over 72 million people—were obese in 2005–2006. The percentages were 33.3% of men and 35.3% of women. These figures reflect no statistically significant change from 2003–2004, when 31.1% of men and 33.2% of women were obese.
Adults aged 40–59 had the highest obesity prevalence compared with other age groups. Approximately 40% of men in this age group were obese, compared with 28% of men aged 20–39 and 32% of men aged 60 and older.
Among women, 41% of those aged 40–59 were obese, compared with 30.5% of women aged 20–39. Rates for women aged 65 and older were comparable with the rates for women in the 20–39 age bracket.

Bryan Young, producer of an upcoming documentary on the subject of obesity, Killer at Large, thinks the government’s report falls short. The documentary features interviews and footage on the topic of obesity. Contributing experts and celebrities include Bill Clinton, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, Ralph Nader, Kelly Brownell, PhD, Michael Pollan and others. “When they say ‘no significant gains,’ we’re still talking 2%–3% of the population [crossing] the threshold of obesity in the last 2 years,” Young said in a press release. “With a population the size of the United States, that’s still close to a million people. That sounds pretty significant to me. The fact remains that based on their numbers, more than 72 million Americans are categorized as obese, and [the CDC is] nowhere near hitting their own goal of a 15% obesity rate by 2010.”