Obesity Rate on the Rise
Posted: Dec 01 in Obesity and your Health by Staff
The obesity problem in the United States isn’t getting any better.
For the past decade experts have been talking about the obesity epidemic in the United States. Over 60 percent of US adults are overweight, and one in every three are actually obese. These are staggering statistics—or so they were when they were first released. Obesity is a major health concern, increasing your risk for heart attack, stroke and a long list of other chronic illnesses. But as time has gone by these numbers have lost a lot of their shock value.
Obesity has become somewhat normal in the United States, something that isn’t so shocking or questioned as often. Evidence of this shift in mentality can be found in the fact that the percentage of obese adults in the United States has actually grown. According to the latest CDC report, approximately four out of every ten adults in the United States are now considered obese, and even more are still overweight.
This increase in the percentage of obese Americans comes despite decades of public efforts to curb weight gain and support anti-obesity efforts. Increased access to fast foot, processed foods, and a constantly growing dependence on sedentary work stations as computers continue to dominate professional culture are at the center of the discussion regarding why so many Americans keep gaining weight. But all of the blame can’t be put on the 9-5 grind. Approximately 20% of US children are also obese, which means that there are fundamental concerns with how we are eating and spending our time as a society that we need to address to be able to see these numbers start to go down.
Losing weight is hard to do, but weight loss is essential to optimal health. Living with obesity increases your risk for heart attack, stroke, type-2 diabetes, sleep apnea, depression, anxiety—the list goes on and on. The longer you have been overweight or obese, the more likely you are to experience health complications as a result of your excess weight; and the harder it becomes to actually lose weight.
The best thing that you can do is to take advantage of weight loss resources that are proven to be successful and helpful. Weight loss surgery is the most successful weight loss method on the market. Working with your weight loss surgeon can help you develop the lifestyle skills and tools you need to lose weight and keep it off long-term.