Obesity Rates Are Increasing Among Women, Not Men

Between 2005 and 2014, the obesity rate among women in the United States increased, while that rate stayed the same for American men, according to a new study led by researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics, who point out that the prevalence of obesity “increased significantly” among adult men and women in the United States between 1980 and 2000.

Further substantial increases, they write, were observed through 2003-2004 for men, but not for women, while subsequent comparisons of data from 2003-2004 with data through 2011-2012 showed no noteworthy increases for men or women.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

With the goal of examining obesity prevalence for 2013-2014, as well as evaluating trends over the decade from 2005 to 2014 (adjusting for sex, age, race/Hispanic origin, smoking status, and education), the authors analyzed data obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Overall, the investigators evaluated data from 2638 adult men (mean age, 46.8 years) and 2817 women (mean age, 48.4 years), taken from the most recent 2 years (2013 and 2014) of NHANES and data from 21,013 participants in previous NHANES surveys from 2005 through 2012.

For the years 2013 and 2014, the overall age-adjusted prevalence of obesity was 37.7%, the authors found. That number stood at 35% for men and 40.4% for women throughout that time. The corresponding prevalence of class 3 obesity overall was 7.7%; 5.5% among men and 9.9% among women.

Analyses of changes over the years 2005 through 2012, when adjusted for age, race/Hispanic origin, smoking status, and education, “showed significant increasing linear trends among women for overall obesity, and for class 3 obesity, but not among men,” the researchers wrote, adding that “other studies are needed to determine the reasons for these trends.”

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Flegal KM, Kruszon-Moran D, Carroll MD, Fryar CD, Ogden CL. Trends in obesity among adults in the United States, 2005 to 2014 [published online June 7, 2016]. JAMA. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.6458.