US obesity rates *still* rising

Rates increased in 28 states

In the past year, levels of obesity in the United States have steadily increased, with rates rising in 28 states. According to a report released this week entitled ‘F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2010’, eight states have obesity rates of more than 25 percent, and nearly a third of American children are classified as obese. The results highlight the worsening of the problem of obesity in America. In 1991, no state in the country had obesity rates higher than 20 per cent; now, Colorado is the only one that has an adult obesity rate of less than 20 per cent.

There are serious issues around the perceptions of obesity, a separate poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and American Viewpoint has found. While 80 per cent of Americans realised that childhood obesity is increasing  and one-third of American children are obese, 84 per cent of parents said they thought their own children were at a healthy weight. This disparity between perception and reality poses a big challenge in tackling obesity.

There are also racial and class gaps in obesity rates. More blacks and Hispanics were obese in 40 states, and more than one-third of adults who earned less than $15,000 per year were obese compared with 24 per cent who made $50,000 or more.

Source: The Washington Times, 29 June 2010.

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