Prevalence of Obesity Summary
Prevalence of Obesity
is the percentage of the population estimated to be obese, defined as
having a body mass index (BMI) of 30.0 or higher. BMI is equal to your
weight in pounds divided by your height in inches squared and then
multiplied by 703. CDC has a calculator for BMI at
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/calc-bmi.htm. Weight status is
determined per Table 11. Obesity is known to contribute to a variety of
diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and general poor health (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/).
The data
are collected by each state as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Table 23 displays the 2007 ranks,
based on 2006 data (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention). The average for the United States
is 25.1 percent of the adult population, up from 24.4 percent of the
population in 2006 and over double the rate of 11.6 percent of the
population in 1990. In the United States, this means that one-in-four
are obese - this is 56 million adults with a body mass index of 30.0 or
higher. If the population of the United States could return to the
weight status of 1990, there would be over 25 million fewer obese
individuals - more than the entire population of the second largest
state in the United States, Texas.
The prevalence of
obesity ranges from 18.2 percent of the population in
Colorado to over 30 percent of the
population in Mississippi,
West Virginia and
Alabama. In the last year, only
Louisiana experienced a decline of
over 3 percent in this measure. In Nevada
and Ohio, the prevalence of obesity in
their populations increased by 3 percent or more. Since 1990, the
prevalence of obesity increased in all states. It increased the least
in Connecticut,
Florida and
Wyoming where an additional one of 11
people are now considered obese. It increased the most in
Alabama, where an additional one of
six people is now considered obese.
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