http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article206680904.htmlBy MATT RICHTEL And ANDREW JACOBS
New York Times News Service
March 24, 2018 09:30 AM
U.S. adults continue to put on the pounds. New data show that nearly 40 percent of them were obese in 2015 and 2016, a sharp increase from a decade earlier, federal health officials reported Friday.
The prevalence of severe obesity in U.S. adults is also rising, heightening their risks of developing heart disease, diabetes and various cancers. According to the latest data, published Friday in JAMA, 7.7 percent of U.S. adults were severely obese in the same period.
The data – gathered in a large-scale federal survey that is considered the gold standard for health data – measured trends in obesity from 2015 and 2016 back to 2007 and 2008, when 5.7 percent of U.S. adults were severely obese and 33.7 percent were obese. The survey counted people with a body mass index of 30 or more as obese, and those with a BMI of 40 or more as severely obese.
The study found the percentage of youths who are obese and severely obese rose slightly from the 2007-2008 time frame, but not enough to be statistically significant.
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