The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is a very important organization that gathers and manages the majority of this information in the United States.
This animation shows adult obesity rates from 1985-2010. There is a clearly apparent trend of increasing obesity rates. In just a 25 year span, this country has gone from most states have rates lower than 15% to all states having rates above 20%, often even more than 30%.
This CDC chart gives a picture of where we are now - the rates of self-reported obesity in American adults from 2011-2013. None of the states had rates of less than 20%. In the orange and red states, approximately one out of every three adults is obese. It's important to remember that this is obesity rates - the rates of overweight adults are even higher.
Obesity in Hispanic Adults
Obesity African Adults
Obesity in Non-Hispanic White Adults
The CDC's data reveals that there are disparities between obesity rates when the results are analyzed by race. Non-Hispanic White adults (on the bottom) have generally lower rates of obesity than Hispanic Adults (on the top) and African Americans (in the center). There are also trends relating lower income people with higher rates of obesity. There are several key factors that may explain these disparities, but we'll save that discussion for another blog entry.
Obesity is associated with many increased health risks, including:
- Type 2 Diabetes - over 80% of people with Type 2 Diabetes are obese or overweight (Lewis, 2014, p. 910).
- Hypertension - high blood pressure
- Coronary Artery Disease - this disease is associated with significantly increased risk of heart attack
- Sudden Cardiac Death
- Cardiomyopathy - defects in the heart muscle cells
- Right-sided heart failure
- Mentrual Irregularities
- Infertility
- Sexual Dysfunction
- Sleep Apnea
- Asthma
- Pulmonary Hypertension - high blood pressure in the lungs
- Arthritis
- Chronic low back pain
- Cancer - "About 20% of cancers in women and 15% in men are attributable to obesity" (Lewis, 2014, p. 911)
Because of these many increased health risks, the risk that someone who is obese will die is increased by 50-100%, compared with someone who is a normal weight (Lewis, 2014, p. 910). These health risks can also lead to a decreased quality of life - when people are obese, they may not be able to live life as they wish to in the moment.
Obesity is a significant, complicated dilemma, and it requires serious attention.
Braqdy, Heather. (2013). Watch the Country Get Fatter in One Animated Map. [Gif]. Retrived from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/04/obesity_in_america_cdc_releases_gif_of_epidemic_over_time.html
Lewis, S. L. (2014). Obesity. In Harding M. M. (Eds.), Medical-Surgical Nursing - Assess and Management of Clinical Problems. (pp. 906 - 922). St. Louis, Elsevier.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Overweight and Obesity - Data and Statistics. [Graphic Illustrations]. Retrived from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html
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