Obesity in USA!

Obese America: 75pc overweight by 2015

By Sophie Borland
Last Updated: 11:57am BST 19/07/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../19/wfat119.xml


More than three quarters of American adults will be overweight by 2015, a survey has found.

A further 41 per cent will be obese if people continue to gain weight at the current rate, according to the study by Johns Hopkins University.

The team of researchers based in Baltimore looked at national surveys of weight and behaviour as well as examining 20 studies in academic journals.

Their research, published in the Journal of Epidemiological Reviews, also predicted that obesity would soon become the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.

Dr Youfa Yang who led the study said: "Obesity is a public health crisis. If the rate of obesity and overweight continues at this pace, by 2015, 75 per cent of adults and nearly 24 per cent of US children and adolescents will be overweight or obese.

advertisement"Every group is steadily getting heavier."

May Beydoun, one of the researchers involved in the study, said: "Obesity is likely to continue to increase, and if nothing is done, it will soon become the leading preventable cause of death in the United States."

The study defined "overweight" and "obese" using the medical definition the Body Mass Index (BMI) which is found by dividing a person's weight in kilos by their height in metres squared.

Under the classification, those with a BMI of 25 or above are considered "overweight" while those with BMIs of 30 or above are "obese" and considered to be at serious risk of heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancers.

The latest figures show that two thirds of adults and 16 per cent of children and adolescents in the US are currently overweight.

Black women are much more prone to the condition with an alarming 80 per cent aged 40 or over classified overweight and 50 per cent obese.

The United States is the most overweight country in the world and the soaring levels of obesity have been attributed to a poor diet of junk food and fizzy drinks as well as lack of exercise.

In Britain the figures are considerably lower but health experts are warning that the country is now on the brink of an obesity epidemic.

Around a quarter of British adults are obese while the proportion of obese children rose by more than 40 per cent between 1995 and 2004.

Last week a study suggested that a so-called fat tax could save more than 3,000 lives a year. The researchers showed that obesity levels would fall if people were forced to pay more for fattier foods.