Obesity is still a growing problem for American adults, CDC says

The prevalence of childhood obesity increased markedly with age. Among children between the ages of 2 and 5, 8.9% were obese. The prevalence spiked to 17.5% for kids ages 6 to 11, then climbed to 20.5% for adolescents ages 12 to 19, the study said.

As with adults, the rate of obesity in kids varied significantly by race and ethnicity. Asian Americans still had the lowest prevalence, at 8.6%, followed by whites at 14.7%. After that the positions flipped, with 19.5% of African Americans and 21.9% of Latinos being classified as obese, according to the report.

Americans of all ages were more likely to be obese in 2013 and 2014 than they were in 1999 and 2000, the researchers found. The obesity rate among youth hit 17.1% in 2003 and 2004 and has remained essentially stable since then; in 2013 and 2014, it was 17.2%.

But for those ages 20 and older, things are still getting worse. In 1999 and 2000, 30.5% of adults were obese. That ticked up to 34.3% in 2005 and 2006 and 35.7% in 2009 and 2010 on the way to reaching 37.7% in 2013 and 2014, the most recent years for which data are available.

The way things are going, it’s hard to see how Americans can meet the federal government’s goal of reducing the nation’s adult obesity rate to 30.5% and the childhood obesity rate to 14.5% by the year 2020. The only group that’s below the Healthy People 2020 target is 2- to 5-year-olds; they’ll stay that way as long as their obesity rate doesn’t exceed 9.4%.

Obesity raises the risk of a host of health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer, high blood pressure, stroke, osteoarthritis and reproductive problems. The heavier you get, the greater the risk that obesity will shorten your life: A 2014 study in PLOS Medicine calculated that people with a body mass index of 40 or above lost 6.5 years to 13.7 years of life as a result of obesity.

The new report was published Thursday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The figures in the study came from data gathered by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, an ongoing nationwide survey of American children and adults. 

Article Appeared @http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-american-adults-more-obese-20151112-story.html

 

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