- CHICAGO (Reuters) - Americans
are still getting fatter.
-
- About 59 million people, one in every three U.S. adults,
are now obese and the number of overweight children has tripled in the
last two decades, according to studies published on Tuesday.
-
- "The problem keeps getting worse," said Tommy
Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
-
- "We've seen virtually a doubling in the number of
obese persons over the past two decades and this has profound health implications.
Obesity increases a person's risk for a number of serious conditions, including
diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and some types of
cancer," he said in a statement.
-
- Cynthia Ogden, one of the authors of the studies from
the National Center for Health Statistics, said increases in portion sizes,
eating out more frequently and an inactive population were all blamed for
the problem.
-
- The studies published in this week's Journal of the American
Medical Association found that the biggest weight gains have been seen
in people over the age of 60, black and Mexican-American teens and black
women.
-
- Ogden said the increase among black women has occurred
among all ages, though half of that group age 40 and above are obese. So
are one fourth of black and Mexican-American teens, a 10 percent increase
over the last decade.
-
- The studies surveyed more than 4,000 adults and in excess
of 4,000 children and teens in 1999 and 2000.
-
- Among adults, the prevalence of obesity was 30.5 percent,
compared to 22.9 percent in a survey conducted from 1988 to 1994. The number
of those considered overweight but not yet obese also increased during
this period from 55.9 percent to 64.5 percent, the study said.
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- Among children, 15.5 percent of those aged 12 to 19 were
overweight, as were 15.3 percent of those aged 6 to 11 and 10.4 percent
of those aged 2 to 5. In the 1988-1994 study, the respective rates were
10.5 percent, 11.3 percent and 7.2 percent.
-
- The study defined overweight and obesity on the basis
of body mass index -- a formula in which a person's body weight is divided
by height squared. Under that calculation a man 6 feet tall would be considered
overweight at 184 pounds and obese at 221 pounds.
-
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