Americans No Longer Gaining Weight

by Cameron Scott · 2010-01-14 11:33:00 UTC
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After decades of rising obesity rates, Americans have finally hit peak weight, according to two new studies from the Centers of Disease Control.

Obesity rates plateaued for women in 1999 and for men in 2003. Obesity in children has also leveled off.

17 percent of American children are obese, and a full two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. Health problems linked to obesity account for 10 percent of the federal health care budget.

CDC researcher Bill Dietz hypothesized that youth have stopped getting fatter due to efforts to offer healthier lunch alternatives and remove junk food vending machines from schools.

But what about adults? Have we just hit total saturation of bad eating? Have public health educational programs been working?

Obesity is a declared public health priority for the Obama administration -- and its new, somewhat rotund, Surgeon General.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Cameron Scott writes The Thin Green Line blog at SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle).
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