Overweight People Now a Majority, U.S. Says
For the first time, overweight people outnumber normal-size people in the United States, according to the latest government statistics, released Tuesday.
The reasons are not entirely clear.
Katherine Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Md., who outlined the data, said many small reductions in physical activity might be to blame.
She noted the development of the TV remote control, which keeps people planted on the couch all evening, and fear of crime, which gives them another reason to stay inside.
Dr. Albert J. Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania contended: “It’s just eating too much. Physical activity hasn’t increased enough to make up for it.”
Whatever the reason, the latest government figures show just how fat the country has become.
Federal guidelines suggest that people should keep their body mass indexes under 25. Anything more than that is too much.
Body mass index, or BMI, is quickly becoming the standard way of talking about obesity, since it is an easy way to compare the fatness of people of different heights. BMI is body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. A 5-foot-4 woman who weighs 145 pounds has a BMI of 25.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted on 30,000 people between 1991 and 1994, shows that 59% of American men and 49% of women have BMIs over 25. Ten years earlier, 51% of men and 41% of women were that heavy.
Flegal presented the figures at a meeting of the North American Assn. for the Study of Obesity.
People in their 50s are the fattest. The survey found that 73% of men and 64% of women this age have BMIs over 25.
But the survey also found obesity increasing among preteens too.
Extreme obesity is also becoming more common. The survey found that 2% of men and 4% of women have BMIs over 40--double the rate a decade ago. A 5-foot-4 woman with a BMI of 40 weighs 230 pounds.
While a BMI of 25 is probably not particularly bad, experts say significant health problems begin to emerge when the BMI hits 27. That’s 155 pounds for the 5-foot-4 woman.
Flegal noted, however, that some weight-related health ills do not appear to be rising with Americans’ increasing weights. The survey shows that cholesterol levels are falling and blood pressure appears to be holding steady or dropping slightly. On the other hand, the statistics suggest that diabetes, which is also closely related to weight, may be increasing.
While there is no universally accepted definition of obesity, some experts call it a BMI of 30 or more: 175 pounds for the 5-foot-4 woman.
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How to Figure Body Mass Index
The government considers a body mass index over 25 to be too fat. Here’s how to figure yours:
1. First, multiply your weight in pounds by .45 to get kilograms.
2. Next, convert your height to inches.
3. Multiply inches by .0254 to get meters.
4. Multiply the number of meters by itself.
5. Divide the kilograms (no. 1) by the squared meters (no. 4).
Your answer will probably be a number in the 20s or low 30s. It is your body mass index.
Source: Associated Press
