Round 40% of adults within the U.S. are overweight, new information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention suggests — marking the primary time in over a decade that the nation’s weight problems price has not inched up in outcomes from the federal authorities’s nationwide well being survey.
The figures come from a brand new report by the CDC’s Nationwide Middle for Well being Statistics, analyzing information collected by means of the company’s decadeslong Nationwide Well being and Diet Examination Survey nationwide.
In 2000, the survey estimated that round 30% of adults have been overweight, outlined as having a physique mass index of better than or equal to 30. By 2020, the CDC’s estimate of the grownup weight problems price had climbed to 41.9%.
Now the CDC estimates that 40.3% of adults are overweight, taking a look at survey information from 2021 by means of 2023.
Whereas the distinction from 2020 to 2023 was too small to be counted as a statistically important lower, the modest decline breaks a streak of charges that had been growing nearly yearly since 2011.
“In the US, the prevalence of weight problems in adults stays above the Wholesome Individuals 2030 purpose of 36.0%,” the company mentioned within the report, citing the federal authorities’s official purpose to cut back the share of People who’re chubby or overweight.
Weight problems charges stay highest amongst adults 40 to 59 years outdated, at 46.4%. Charges are lowest amongst these 20 to 39 years outdated, at 35.5%.
Extreme weight problems charges proceed to extend, the CDC’s survey additionally discovered. Adjusted for age, the prevalence of adults with a BMI of better than or equal to 40 elevated from 7.7% to 9.4%.
At these greater ranges of weight problems, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being warns that persons are on the biggest threat of the ailments which might be linked with weight acquire, like coronary heart illness and diabetes.
Map reveals states with highest, lowest weight problems charges
The brand new figures come only a week after the CDC launched its state map of weight problems charges across the nation, primarily based on outcomes from a unique ongoing survey run by the company, which discovered that greater than a 3rd of adults in 23 states have been overweight in 2023. That’s up from no states with greater than a 3rd of residents being overweight a decade in the past in 2013.
Solely the District of Columbia and Colorado had lower than 1 / 4 of residents who have been overweight in 2023. That is down from seven states and D.C. that had charges under 25% in 2013.
U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention
“This new information spotlight the necessity for weight problems prevention and remedy choices, which begin with constructing more healthy communities the place individuals of all ages have protected locations for bodily exercise, and the place well being care and wholesome meals choices are accessible and reasonably priced for all,” Dr. Karen Hacker, head of the CDC’s Nationwide Middle for Persistent Illness Prevention and Well being Promotion, mentioned in an announcement following the map’s launch.
The discharge of the brand new CDC figures additionally comes forward of a Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions committee listening to with the chief government officer of Novo Nordisk, questioning the drugmaker for the excessive costs it costs for its blockbuster semaglutide medicine, branded as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight reduction.
A surge of demand for Novo Nordisk’s medicine, in addition to comparable tirzepatide medicine made by rival Eli Lilly branded as Zepbound for weight reduction and Mounjaro for diabetes, have landed them on the Meals and Drug Administration’s scarcity checklist for years.
“Epidemiologists have estimated that greater than 40,000 lives per 12 months could possibly be saved if Wegovy and different weight-loss medicine have been made reasonably priced and broadly obtainable in the US,” the panel, led by Democrats and Vermont Impartial Senator Bernie Sanders, mentioned in a launch forward of the listening to.
