United States: According to the latest report by the health agency of the US, more than one in five American adults in every US state are suffering from obesity, and the rate is still rising in several states.
According to a Yahoo Life survey, the national obesity average has fallen marginally, from 33.9 percent to 33.6 percent last year.
The national obesity rate is stagnant but high
The latest report suggests that there is not one state in the US where the obesity rate is significantly below twenty percent of the overall population of that state.
According to Yahoo Life Reports, obesity is a global crisis; however, it is particularly prevalent in the United States, as on average, 33.6 percent of Americans were obese last year.
The rate is almost similar to the rate the CDC recorded in 2022, which underlined a slight drop from the previous year’s record; that is, 33.9 percent of the people were obese in 2021.
Obesity, major risk factors
As per the CDC, obesity is considered one of the major preventable factors causing premature death. Experts have also warned that it could raise the risks of chronic conditions such as heart disease, type two diabetes as well as various cancers.
According to Dr. Gitanjali Srivastava, a professor of medicine in the division of diabetes, endocrinology, and metabolism at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, “Several factors contribute to this trend, including the widespread availability of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, sedentary lifestyles, and socioeconomic factors that limit access to healthy food and physical activity.”
“Additionally, there are complex interactions between genetics, environment, and behavior that make obesity a challenging condition to manage and prevent,” Yahoo Life reported.
Ozempic isn’t improving obesity rates
Dr. Jamy Ard from Wake Forest Baptist Health Weight Management Center is not much surprised to witness the national obesity rate remaining at higher levels and also thinks that it will stay like that for some more period, even in the time when Ozempic and other GLP-1 type drugs are available.
He even stated two major causes: technical and social. The technical reason is that many individuals take medicines and have BMIs above 30. Although they observe significant weight loss with the help of weight-loss drugs, however, their BMI might go from 40 to 31.
Ard added, “If the CDC calls up and they take the survey,” which leads the agency to collect new data, “they would still be classified as obese” based on their weight and height.
This is one of the reasons BMI has become one of the controversial metrics for obesity.
The social reason includes really changing the prevalence of obesity; we have to stop the number of people who are abnormally gaining weight and developing obesity,” Ard said.
“That’s the only way to bend this curve, and that’s not a treatment question, that’s a prevention question … that’s a system’s question, and we have not had the political will to do that,” he continued.