America’s been grappling with rising obesity rates for decades, but despite increasing awareness and dieting, those trends don’t show any signs of slowing down. According to a recent study from The New England Journal of Medicine, nearly half of all US adults will be obese by 2030.
Led by scientists at Harvard and George Washington universities, the study released last week predicts that by 2030, about 49 percent of US adults will be obese, while more than half of adults in 29 states will be.
According to the study, about 24 percent will have severe obesity, which is defined as having a BMI of 35 or over, a rate comparable to that of overall obesity in the 1990s. The predicted increase would make severe obesity the most common weight category among women, blacks, and low-income adults.
Dr. Lawrence Appel of Johns Hopkins University, who had no affiliation with the new study, called the results “alarming,” telling the New York Post that this predicted increase in obesity could cause severe medical and financial problems for the country.
The prediction comes after a report earlier this year revealed that while weight loss attempts are on the rise in the US, the nation continues to see overall increases in weight and BMI.
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