Obesity Prevalence in the United States — Up, Down, or Sideways?

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Abstract
Americans are continually bombarded with statistics on obesity. The media are filled with news reports celebrating the possible shrinking of our waistlines or lamenting their ongoing expansion. Some recent studies have suggested that U.S. obesity rates are continuing to increase. For example, state- and national-level data from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)1 showed increases between 2007 and 2009 in the reported prevalence of obesity among adults — a 1.1% increase nationally, or an additional 2.4 million or so obese adults. Such data have led some investigators to suggest that by 2050, an enormous percentage of Americans — perhaps approaching 100% — will be overweight (defined in adults as a body mass index [BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters] above 25 but below 30) or obese (BMI ≥30). Other reports, however, suggest that the U.S. obesity prevalence, though very high, has stabilized. Results from the CDC's 2007–2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) suggest that the prevalence of obesity among women (35.5%)2 and children 2 to 19 years of age (16.9%)3 has remained stable over the past 10 years and that the prevalence among men (32.2%)2 has not changed significantly since 2003. These conflicting reports have led to confusion regarding the prevalence of, and secular trends in, obesity in the United States.