Has the U.S. Obesity Epidemic Hit a Plateau?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Sarah J.

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Obesity Epidemic May Have Peaked In U.S article written by ROB STEIN at NPR.org

The nation’s obesity epidemic appears to have hit a plateau, according to the latest federal data released Tuesday.

Obesity soared in the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s, doubling among adults and tripling among children. That raised widespread alarm and debate about the causes and possible solutions. Obesity can increase the risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other serious health problems.

The latest data come from 2009-2010 installment of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which surveys about 10,000 adults and children every two years.

The proportion of adult Americans who are obese held steady at about 35 percent, marking the second time that had happened between installments of the survey. And when the researchers examined the surveys over the long-term, they found clear evidence that that overall obesity had leveled off.

“These data basically show than we haven’t seen any change probably since back to 2003-4 in obesity in any group,” said Cynthia Ogden of the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the latest data and published two papers online in JAMA, theJournal of the American Medical Association. One paper focused on adults while the second focused on children.

The researchers didn’t examine why the stall may be happening. But other experts speculate that at least part of it is all the attention the problem has been getting.

“We’ve seen some very effective changes that are occurring in schools and at the societal level in terms of food labeling, economic incentives, behavioral strategies,” says Penny Gordon-Larsen, an obesity researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

It’s also possible that we’re reached a kind of new normal, with the proportion of population who is predisposed to obesity having already become obese, says Harvard’sDavid Ludwig, a specialist in treating overweight kids.

“Obesity prevalence can’t keep going up year after year indefinitely. Ultimately we’ll reach a state where those individuals who are susceptible to becoming obese for genetic reasons have already developed obesity,” Ludwig says.

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