The obesity epidemic in the United States may have finally started to level off, new federal data suggests. According to a National Public Radio report, the proportion of American adults who are obese has held steady at about 35 percent for the past seven or eight years.
“These data basically show that we haven’t seen any change probably since back to 20033 to 2004 in obesity in any group,” said Cynthia Ogden of the National Center for Health Statistics, the group responsible for releasing the report.
The plateau comes after obesity rates doubled for adults in the 1980s and 1990s, and even tripled for children during the same time period. Experts say they don’t know why the trend has slowed, but some believe the widespread attention the issue is receiving may be helping to reduce the problem.”
“We’ve seen some very effective changes that are occurring in schools and at the societal level in terms of food labeling, economic incentives, behavioral strategies,” said Penny Gordon-Larsen, an obesity researcher with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Harvard professor David Ludwig also suggested that Americans have reached a “new normal,” meaning that people who are predisposed to become obese have already done so.
