Statistics of Overweight People in America

For decades it was believed that the rate of overweight Americans was relatively static. Somewhere around 25% of Americans were considered overweight. But at the beginning of the 80's the rate suddenly spiked upward to 30, 35, 40%. People started wondering where all of these huge gains came from. What changes took place in the environment to allow this to happen?

Statistics of overweight people in America

Nowadays Americans are the fattest people on the planet. About 60% or a little bit more of Americans are overweight. And 20% of Americans are obese, which means that their lives will be cut short because of it. More than 5 million people qualify for a radical surgical technique known as gastroplasty, wherein the stomach is surgically altered to so as to keep food from being digested. The worst thing about all of it is that the rate of overweight Americans is still increasing.

Children are most at risk from obesity. About 255 of all Americans under the age of 19 are either overweight or obese. A figure that is doubled in 30 years. Obesity is also slowly moving to the middle and upper classes, but the condition mainly plagued the poor and the working poor. Mexican American women at the age of 20-74, have an obesity rate of 135 or higher for those who live below the poverty line versus those who are above the poverty line.

Yet so many Americans and also doctors are in deep denial of this problem. The Centers of Disease Control surveyed about 12,000 people to find out what the doctors were telling them. It came out fewer than half were being advised to lose weight. Also patients with an income above $50 000 were more likely to receive such advice. That is why members of lower socioeconomic groups have poorer health and outcomes.