Note from Connie: All you need to do is look around you wherever you go, and you’ll inevitably, tragically find more and more overweight and obese Americans. As if it isn’t bad enough with some 65 percent of the U.S. population currently packing on too many pounds, now we get predictions of millions more people who are expected to unnecessarily harm their health by weighing too much. (Naturally, excess sugar consumption, as I point out in SUGAR SHOCK!, plays a big role in all of this.) My researcher Karen James brings us up to date about new predictions in this blog post.
By the year 2015, a whopping 75 percent of U.S. adults are expected to be overweight and 41 percent will be obese, according to a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Reuters reported.
The study, which reviewed 20 studies published between 1990 and 2006 and national surveys of weight and behavior, appeared in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews. (The researchers used Body Mass Index (BMI), which measures body fat according to height and weight to define adult overweight and obesity. Scores of 25 and higher indicated overweight, while scores of 30 and higher indicated obesity.)
The researchers, who characterized obesity as increasing at "an alarming rate," also found that between the 1960s and 2004 adult obesity prevalence increased from 13 percent to 32 percent and disproportionately affected minority and low-socioeconomic groups.
By Karen James for the SUGAR SHOCK! Blog