Obesity among U.S. adults is continuing to level off after several decades of skyrocketing growth, new government data show.
In 2012, about 34.9% of the people in this country were obese, which is roughly 35 pounds over a healthy weight. That is not significantly different from the 35.7% who were obese in 2010.
In both 2010 and 2012 about 78 million adults were obese; more than 50 million of those were white, according to the latest statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Even though it looks like a slight drop in the percentage of adults who are obese, this difference is not statistically significant," says Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics. "This is more evidence that we're not seeing a change in adult obesity."
Harvey Grill, president of the Obesity Society, says, "The fact that we're at 35% of adult Americans who are obese is extremely troubling because their obesity will result in health problems for the majority of them."
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