By Jim McLean
KHI News Service
ATLANTA, Dec. 10 While members of Congress debate farm-bill provisions aimed at preventing childhood obesity, new data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
indicate that adult obesity rates have hit a plateau.
Dr. William Dietz, director of the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at CDC, said the results of the
latest National Health And Nutrition Examination Surveys
is significant because it suggests a halt in what had been a 25-year trend of increasing obesity rates. The adult obesity rate was 15 percent in 1980 but has since more than doubled.
“While we may not have turned the corner with respect to obesity, we may be at the corner,” Dietz said last week to a group of Kansas and Missouri health reporters visiting the CDC as part of the
Midwest Health Journalism Fellowship program
.
The most recent NHANES data show there was no significant change in adult obesity prevalence from 2003-04 and 2005-06. According to the new report, 33.3 percent of men and 35.5 percent of women are obese, up only slightly from 31.1 percent for men and 33.2 percent for women in 2003-04.
While the latest numbers are encouraging, Dietz said, they still show that more than 72 million adults ages 20 and older are obese, meaning they have a
body mass index (BMI)
of 30 or greater. Tens of millions more people are overweight.
Dietz said the leveling in rates indicates that Americans have become increasingly aware of the health risks posed by obesity in much the same way that they tuned into early health warnings about tobacco.
“It suggests to me that we may be at the same place with obesity as we were with tobacco control in the 1950s,” he said.
Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer and type 2 diabetes.
Dietz said while there is greater recognition of the health consequences of obesity much work remains to be done on effective intervention strategies. He said widespread cultural changes are needed to help people make healthier choices about diet and exercise.
“The challenge now is, how do we make the healthy choices the easy choices?” he said. “We have to think about this in terms of a social movement.”
Implementing nutrition and physical activity programs in schools and wellness programs in the workplace is a place to start, he said. Designing buildings and communities in ways that promote greater physical activity also will be critical.
To illustrate that not all of the changes need to be big ones, Dietz said the CDC has been experimenting with how to get people to use stairs more often. He said new paint and artwork didn”t seem to make a difference. But, he said, when music from a satellite radio service was piped into stairwells usage went up between 8 percent and 9 percent and stayed up.
“Those little studies, which cost $1,000 at the most, have influenced the design of all new CDC buildings,” he said.
-Jim McLean is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
jmclean@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 110.