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The number of U.S. residents who are severely obese shot up by 70 percent in the past decade or so, though the increase has slowed in more recent years, according to a U.S. study.
Between 2000 and 2010, the proportion of U.S. residents who were severely obese - at least 45 kilograms (100 lbs) overweight - rose from 4 percent to almost 7 percent, said researchers whose findings appeared in the International Journal of Obesity.
The increase showed signs of slowing after 2005, they added. But the bad news is that the severely obese remain the fastest-growing segment of obese Americans, said study leader Roland Sturm, a senior economist at the non-profit research institute RAND Corporation.
"Everybody's talking about obesity leveling off," Sturm said. But what tends to get lost in the discussion is the fact that severe obesity, with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher - is still rising fast.
That's important, Sturm said, because those are the people who have the highest healthcare costs, about double those of normal-weight people.
More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese, which means having a BMI of 30 or higher. BMI is a measure of weight relative to height.
Recent studies have found that the nation's obesity rate among adults and children may be leveling off, but most of those folks are moderately obese.
The findings for the current study were based on data from an annual government health survey of U.S. adults. BMI estimates were made based on people's self-reported weight and height.
Moderate obesity, the study found, rose relatively slowly after 2000 and seemed to level off from 2005 on. In contrast, the proportion of Americans with a BMI of 40 climbed by more than 70 percent - translating to about 15 million U.S. adults.
The rate of severe obesity was 50 percent higher among women than men, and twice as high among black Americans as among white and Hispanic adults.
The increases were bigger among people under 40.
Severely obese people are at high risk of conditions like diabetes, severe arthritis and heart disease - and could also be candidates for obesity surgery.
But Sturm said there are other costs besides the healthcare price tag, such as the human cost of living with obesity.
"There's the disability and inability to work. People may be basically forced into retirement because they can't work," he said.
Sturm said that doctors once thought of severe obesity as a problem that affected a small and stable percentage of people who were genetically vulnerable to huge weight gain.
"That thinking has been proven wrong. This is something that can happen to a surprisingly large percentage of the population," he added.
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Put down the cheeseburger!
I know not all obesity is related to an over eating problem, but here in Canada many of us are often amazed at the amount of food served in your restaurants. Although it seems you get "your money's worth", it just seems a bit ridiculous and unhealthy. Here in Canada we probably get about 1/2 the serving portion that you do.
I often see some of the most obese people in the US with huge loads of junk food and what I find appalling is that often the kids are also obese and they are allowed to eat great amounts of junk. Of course the argument many use is that it is a free society so they can do as they please.
We have our fair share of obesity here but no where near as the USA. Even though we are big on restaurants and eating out, people here are extremely health conscious.
So easy for you to be judgmental when you haven't been there or had any experience with the topic.
So easy to put the cheeseburger down and go for a walk!
So easy to not shove 6000 calories of corn syrup down my craw each day!
So, so easy.
That's right fatty! But I commute by bike to work 3 days a week at a 25+ mile round trip per time. Plus I hike, swim, and never potato out for extended periods of time.
So I have no sympathy for you. Suck it up and do one of two things, and preferably two. Stop eating so much and/or start to actually exercise. Can't exercise? STOP EATING SO GODDAMN MUCH!
TOMBONES: I assume that you are calling ME a fatty and that is just comical considering you have no clue what I even look like.
I assure you - you're assumption is 100% incorrect - BUT - I have been there. I go to the gym everyday and workout, I eat healthy and I am a fitness instructor. I wasn't always this way, but I am now.
Now - I work primarily with obese people and helping them understand the foods they are eating and what is productive exercise to combat their weight. And I also support them with all the emotional baggage and food addiction that follows with the obesity issues.
So again - it's so easy to be judgmental when you haven't walked in someone's shoes or had any experience with the topic.
Perhaps you should look into some anger management therapy cause you seem so angry by your post.
TOMBONES: I assume that you are calling ME a fatty and that is just comical considering you have no clue what I even look like.
I assure you - you're assumption is 100% incorrect - BUT - I have been there. I go to the gym everyday and workout, I eat healthy and I am a fitness instructor. I wasn't always this way, but I am now.
Now - I work primarily with obese people and helping them understand the foods they are eating and what is productive exercise to combat their weight. And I also support them with all the emotional baggage and food addiction that follows with the obesity issues.
So again - it's so easy to be judgmental when you haven't walked in someone's shoes or had any experience with the topic.
Perhaps you should look into some anger management therapy cause you seem so angry by your post.
Obesity is a lifestyle choice for almost all fat people. I know it's difficult for many to control their eating but it comes down to a matter of life and death. If you can't control your behavior enough to be healthy you've failed at a basic level.
The sad part is it really isn't as hard as people think to live a healthy lifestyle... people are just ignorant about how to do so. Use Google! The information is available if you look for it!
Basically, here's what you will find... eat vegetables, fruit and unprocessed foods. THAT'S IT, that's all it takes. Stop eating fast food @!$%# and stop eating processed foods from the grocery store!
@ LOOney, you're right. People though refuse to acknowledge emotional baggage that comes along with it. Suicidal thoughts, and the sorrow people felt. Sorry, I was wronged in life. Attacked, bullied, saw people I love die... other horrible things that can happen to women. YES, emotions can cause us to turn to the wrong sort of comfort when no one will listen to you, or be there for you.
I've managed to loose weight, but I still need to loose some more, I want to live. But my body does work against me. I have to devote, honestly, more than 90 minutes a day to even make a pound drop and it takes such a toll on me. The pounding headaches, the dizziness... it's a lot to push through. Just sayin.
But we do need to stop messing with the natural process of food. We need to stop making it so easy and cheap to get mass produced, fat laden, thinly pressed burgers. Or saying that 'diet' soda is good for you, when it's not. It's worse than regular soda. Oh zero calories, so ? The artificial sweetener is not good for you.
What topic would that be LOOney? Eating?
No Matt the topic of obesity isn't just as simple as "put down the cheeseburger" - if it was that easy, then everyone would just be thin and happy cause trust me - there aren't very many people (except for those ones that seem to show up on Jerry Springer now and then) that are "fat & happy".
Actually it is as simple as putting down that cheeseburger... and pick up fruit, veggies and healthy food instead.
It's not rocket science.
it is the fact that we manipulate our food production so much that I would think the nutritional quality has been going down and down and so people eat and eat since body is asking for more nutrients ; not to mentioned all the other junk food; Genetically Modified food (gmo)are probably the worst since we try to play nature and that is not going to work since we do not know it all; we are just trying; proposition 37 in CA is very important to pass so we can stop that manipulation of our food ; vote for it do not listen all those odds on tv saying that it will increase the cost of this or that ; it is just to scare you from doing something right;
In so many ways you are so right!
Food manufacturers add more and more addictive things into our foods all the time that, for some people with addictive personalities, you might as well be handing them a crack pipe. And to help with the whole emotional baggage that goes with it - a lot of people are more sympathetic and understanding about getting the crack addict some help, than they helping the obese person loose weight. The obese person is told to "Put down the cheeseburger!!!" where as the crack addict is sent off to Rehab with a family intervention.
It's quite sad.
Obesity is a problem because Big Pharma, Big Diet and the media can make a lot of money teaching people to hate themselves and to hate others. The big 'scare' that being overweight leads to death is utterly false. The big 'scare' that overweight people have higher health care costs has been proven false. Fat shaming leads to higher obesity levels. Health care that focuses on weight as a measure of health is driving up obesity levels. Diet books, diet food, diet gurus and diet plans make people fat - and keep them that way because it's PROFITABLE. If everyone knew the truth, learned to shut up and mind their own business, if doctors taught people how to be healthy instead of how to be thin, we'd be better off - but if that happened, Big Diet wouldn't be raking in $66 billion a year on plans that DON'T work, and Big Pharma wouldn't be making money on telling people the only way to survive 'obesitydeathfat' is to mutilate your stomach with weight loss surgery and slowly starve to death.
Instead of judging other people, read the real studies, and learn the truth. Thin doesn't equal healthy, better, smarter, faster or a longer life, it just equals thinner.
Fat people do have higher health risks as well as earlier death and cost the health care system MUCH more than healthy weight people. Not sure what propaganda you've been reading...
cut out the food stamp programs for most recipients...been to a grocery store lately?? look at all the junk food they buy and most of them are way over weight.
I can corroborate this.
Any trip to WalMart will back it up. I remember being, literally, a poor college student with $20 for groceries for the week and being behind a 300lb she-behemoth with 3 wretched kids buying a heaping cart of junk... with food stamps. This was the first time I'd seen them used.
She got into a new Taurus, I got into a 30 year old car, boiling mad.
Of course now she's probably still living in squalor, albeit taxpayer funded, while I have a house and career and... uh... I'm paying for her behavior...
Hmm. I think I'm the chump.
Average life longevity is increasing as well as obesity is increasing also..
Wow, way to be wrong! Not true, for the first time in years the longevity is decreasing as a result of huge fat people dominating the country. If you think adding hundreds of pounds of fat to your body isn't unhealthy you are completely ignorant of facts.
Obesity is now the number one killer of Americans.
The obesity rate closely mirrors the introduction of High Fructose Corn Syrup into the national food supply. In rat studies it showed massive weight gain compared to sugar. Outlaw this toxin!
Anyone who is fighting this war on a personal level knows obesity is a complex multifaceted issue and more than the simple math of calories in, calories out. Eating healthy and moving more are definitely a huge part but how about rethinking chocolate milk, pizza (considered a vegetable) and french fries (also a vegetable) in schools, not cutting gym and sports programs, making streets and parks safer so families can walk and play in them. Creating jobs with wages that don't have people struggling to make ends meet (Little Debbie $1 a box, Pasta $1 a box versus Fish, Chicken, Apples several $'s a pound) and work so many hours that the dollar menu drive thru becomes the option. Stop Government subsidizing of junk food ingredients. Educate people (start in elementary school) about nutrition and portion size. Require insurance coverage of prevention and treatment of obesity versus just the diseases caused by it. Just a start. People: Be kind to one another. Since 34% of Americans are obese chances are one of them is your Mom, Grandma, Pop, Uncle, Best Friend, consider that when making your callous comments.
It is NOT more complex than calories in vs calories out. That is the only equation that effects obesity.
Sure, to eat healthy you need to eat fruits and vegetables but I doubt anyone doesn't know that by now. Also, stop listening to idiots that say pizza is a vegetable - you are kidding yourself if you buy into that kind of nonsense.
Everyone knows what fruit is, everyone knows what a vegetable is. They simply don't want to give up their @!$%#-food in mass quantities... again, it's not rocket science.
@ TheOverlord:
Actually, it is more complex than just calories in / calories out. I worked out five days a week for 90 minutes a day, I cut back what I ate, and I didn't move an inch. I ate salads, I put very little dressing, hardly enough to cover a few leafs of lettuce and I didn't move on the scale. I did zumba, elliptical, and NOTHING. I may have had a slipup here and there, but never to where my caloric intake was over 2k, or 1,800 for that matter.
I actually do have a medical condition, my body does work against me, but I have managed to keep 60lbs off but struggling to loose again more because it's a flux. You are so ill informed and ignorant.
Why are some people defending the obese? Personally, I think the overweight/obesity rate in the US is embarrassing.
I guarantee if this article were about smokers there wouldn't be people calling for compassion, yet smokers and the obese both raise everyone's health insurance costs.
Although I must admit I am pleased to see that no one was stupid enough to rip out the "it's genetic" excuse.
Americans, it seems, have lost all sense of personal responsibility and want to blame their obesity on others. That's the problem with obesity...
Since retiring I rarely sit down & eat. I drink alot of coffee & no pop. I would have to starve myself to even lose 1 pound so what is going on?
It's WHAT you eat... weight gain/loss is a simple matter of calories in vs calories out.
If you want to lose eat spinach, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, tomatoes, bananas, cabbage, carrots, grapes... I think you get the picture.
Don't eat @!$%# - meaning nothing in restaurants, packaged goods in the grocery or anything you don't cook from scratch. Take a good look at what you eat and you'll see there is some junk there - if you're not losing.
Studies show that dieting, even that considered “naturalistic”, among young people lead to weight cycling
[Naturalistic weight reduction efforts predicted weight gain and onset of obesity in adolescent girls; ]
There is an evidence-based compassionate alternative to conventional dieting: Health At Every Size®.
Please consider this alternative prior to making a decision that may result in weight cycling.
I would also like to recommend the free NAAFA Child Advocacy ToolkitSM (CATK) and other written
guidelines/resources. The NAAFA Child Advocacy Toolkit shows how Health At Every Size® takes the focus off weight and directs it to healthful eating and enjoyable movement. It addresses the bullying, building positive self-image and eliminating stigmatization of large children. Additionally, the CATK lists resources available to parents and educators or caregivers for educational materials, curriculum and programming that is beneficial for all children. It can be found at:
For more information on
Health At Every Size, you can find a general explanation on Wikipedia
() or find in-depth
research-based information in the book Health At Every Size - The Surprising
Truth About Your Weight by Dr. Linda Bacon ().