U.S. obesity rates, which some recent surveys have said had been stabilizing, seem to be on the rise gain, if a new Gallup poll is to be believed, reports the Huffington Post.
“Gallup analyzed obesity rates in American adults classified in four-year age ranges to avoid any overlapping between groups. Since nearly all groups saw an increase in obesity percentage, it only makes sense that the national average has grown over the past four years as well: in 2012, 26.1 percent of Americans are considered to be obese, compared to 25.5 percent in 2008,” the Post reports.
Obesity is on the rise again.
The increases seem to be across virtually all age groups. “Most dramatically, 30.4 percent of Americans in their mid-40s (ages 44 to 47) are obese, a notable 2.5 percent increase from 2008,” it says.
Sad news for America. Ironically for me, I’m moving in the opposite direction since my angioplasty in August, having lost 19 pounds in 12 weeks since the surgery and being put on a no-salt, no-sugar, no-fat diet. I’m doing my part to reverse the obesity trend, join me.
John
You know what, it’s really sad but when we have drive through for everything, desk jobs that require you to almost never have to leave your desk, long commutes in cars and then throw in the S.A.D, (Standard American Diet), it’s really not that hard to believe. To be honest, obesity starts with the individual and until they find a reason to be healthy, they won’t. Sometimes it’s a simple unflattering photo or it’s something drastic like a near death experience. My only thought is that it depends on how this study was measuring someone being healthy. BMI is NOT, I repeat, NOT a way to measure someone’s level of healthiness. If I do the BMI, I’m at 26BMI (Overweight) but with 15% body fat which would put me in the “athletic” category. To be honest, I bet the people that did that test are overweight or obese themselves!
LikeLike
David –
Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts. I sometimes think of our lives as ‘cursed by affluence.’ We would be so much better off
if we did more things for ourselves.
I very much agree with you, particularly about BMI. It is really erroneous.According to that measurement, heavily muscled people, like NFL players come out obese. I wrote about this a year ago April in a blog post: https://guysandgoodhealth.com/2011/04/26/what-is-a-good-way-to-measure-body-fat/
Tony
LikeLike