Obesity remains alarmingly high and holding steady in the U.S., with a worrying increase in the proportion of individuals with severe obesity, especially among women, according to recent government research.
A survey conducted between 2021 and 2023, involving around 6,000 participants, revealed that the U.S. obesity rate stands at approximately 40%. Nearly one in ten respondents reported severe obesity, as found by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data indicates that women were nearly twice as likely as men to suffer from severe obesity.
Comparing these figures to a previous survey from 2017-2020, the overall obesity rate showed a slight decrease. However, this change is not considered statistically significant, suggesting that it might be due more to mathematical chance than a real decline.
This ambiguity makes it difficult to ascertain the impact of new obesity treatments, including popular weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, on the epidemic of obesity—a chronic disease associated with numerous health problems. According to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer leading the latest study, it is currently challenging to correlate the usage of these medications and changes in obesity prevalence. “Hopefully that is something we can see in the future,” Emmerich added.
Notably, the overall obesity rate in the U.S. has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade. At the same time, the rate of severe obesity has escalated from nearly 8% in the 2013-2014 survey to nearly 10% in the recent study. This trend follows a rapid increase in obesity rates in the U.S. since the 1990s, as documented by federal surveys.
Measures of obesity and severe obesity are determined based on body mass index (BMI), a calculation derived from an individual’s height and weight. A BMI of 30 qualifies an individual as obese, while a BMI of 40 or higher indicates severe obesity. Despite its flaws, BMI is still widely used by doctors to screen for obesity.
“Seeing increases in severe obesity is even more alarming, because that’s the level of obesity most highly associated with severe levels of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and a lower quality of life,” commented Solveig Cunningham, a global health professor at Emory University specializing in obesity.
Cunningham, who was not involved in the new study, expressed uncertainty as to why severe obesity rates are climbing and are higher among women. Potential factors include hormonal effects, the impact of childbearing, or other causes that require further investigation.
The study also identified variations in obesity rates by education level. Nearly 32% of individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported obesity, compared to about 45% of those with some college education or only a high school diploma or less.
These findings were released soon after another report showing that in 2023, obesity rates varied significantly across U.S. states and territories. West Virginia recorded the highest rate, with over 41% of adults obese, while Washington, D.C. had the lowest rate, with less than 24% of adults obese. The Midwest and the South had the highest rates overall.
Every U.S. state and territory reported obesity rates exceeding 20%. In 23 states, more than one in three adults had obesity, a stark increase from pre-2013 figures when no state had such high rates, noted Dr. Alyson Goodman, who heads a CDC team focusing on population health.
Color-coded maps illustrating these changes have evolved from green and yellow shades—indicating lower obesity rates—to orange and dark red, signifying higher prevalence.
“Sometimes, when you look at all that red, it’s really discouraging,” Goodman remarked. Despite this, she finds hope in the recent efforts to understand obesity as a metabolic disease and the advent of new weight-loss treatments.
Preventing obesity from the outset, starting in early childhood, is crucial, emphasized Cunningham. Even for those who develop obesity, the goal should be to prevent further weight gain. “It’s really hard to get obesity to reverse at the individual level and at the population level,” Cunningham noted. “I guess it’s not surprising that we’re not seeing downward shifts in the prevalence of obesity.”
