United States
The United States has the highest obesity rates in the developed world. This is a long-standing phenomenon: already by 1962, 45% of adult Americans were overweight, and 13% of adult Americans were obese; these numbers were already higher than obesity rates observed in most developed countries as late as 2001-02. From 1980 to 2002, obesity rates have doubled, reaching the current rate of 33% of the adult population.
As of 2007, 33% of men and 36% of women are obese. Rates of obesity vary between social groups, with minorities and low-income individuals more likely to be overweight. The rates are as high as 50% among African American women.
Geography is a major factor. The American South has been described alternatively as "Stroke belt", "Obesity belt", or "Diabetes belt", to reflect the fact that all residents of the region have high incidences of these three conditions, compared to people of the same race/ethnicity elsewhere in the country. The lowest obesity rates of major racial/ethnic groups across 50 states are thought to be among non-Hispanic white residents of Colorado and Hawaii, at around 16%. However, these numbers are based on self-reported height and weight data and likely to be underestimated (the bias is so large that, for example, estimates of obesity that rely on self-reported data arrive at the rate of 22% among non-Hispanic white females, whereas studies that involve direct measurement show that the rate is closer to 34%.)
The prevalence of class III obesity (BMI ≥40) has increased the most dramatically, from 1.3% in the late 1970s, to 2.9% in 1988-94, to 4.7% in 2000, to 5.7% in 2008. Among African American women, its prevalence is estimated to be as high as 14%.
The overall rate of obesity began to plateau in the '00s, but severe obesity and obesity in children continued to rise. In January 2010, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the obesity rate for American women has remained constant over the last decade, with only small rises amongst men and children.
Obesity is one of the leading health issues in US society, resulting in about 300,000 deaths per year in the United States. About 65 percent of Americans are now considered either overweight or obese. According to National Health and Nutrition Examination Study collected between 1970s and 2004, overweight and obesity prevalence have increased steadily among all groups of Americans over the past three decades.
Read more about this topic: Epidemiology Of Obesity, The Americas
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)