In an important recent study, researchers found that obesity rates among adults in the United States have declined for the first time in more than a decade.
The study, which was recently published in the journal JAMA Health Forumnoted that obesity rates fell from 46 percent in 2022 to 45.6 percent in 2023, with the largest declines seen in the southern states of the United States. Hill Reported
Additionally, the study found that this decline was particularly noticeable in women aged 66 to 75 years.
“Overall in the United States, obesity was declining, led by the South, but not in some regions,” said computational epidemiologist Benjamin Reeder, an author of the study. NBC News.
“We also saw a large decline in black Americans, but we saw an increase in obesity in Asian Americans,” he added.
The research, which analyzed the health records of more than 16.7 million adults between 2013 and 2023, included a diverse range of participants from different ages, races and regions.
The authors examined body mass index (BMI) data obtained from people’s health records.
Experts have previously stated that while BMI is not an ideal measure of chronic variation in body composition, it is still the best integrated statistic for assessing body fat on a population-level scale.
Additionally, the study’s findings come months after a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released in late September indicated that obesity in the United States is not on the rise.
About 40.3 percent of adults were obese, a slight decrease from the previous three years, the report said.
A new research study, released in mid-November, found that nearly three-quarters of Americans between the ages of 5 and 24 are considered obese or overweight.