Newswise — American women, on average, can pinch an extra inch and a half of flesh around their middles, and men just under an extra inch, proof that many continue to lose in the Battle of the Bulge. The average waist size increased from 37.6 inches to 38.8 inches according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documenting Americans between 1999 and 2012.
While the recession may have shrunk the economy, Americans’ waist size continued to balloon during this period.
“These results, while not surprising, are quite concerning,” says Jessica Bartfield, MD, Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery & Bariatric Care at Loyola University Health System. “Increase in waist size usually suggests much higher health risk. Obesity rates are by no means stabilizing if 54% of Americans are abdominally obese compared to 35% of Americans with obesity defined by the Body Mass Index (BMI). Adults with abdominal obesity are at similar if not increased disease risk as those classified as obese by BMI.” According to the new study published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 46 percent of Americans were abdominally obese in 1999 and that number grew to 54 percent in 2012. Data on almost 33,000 men and women ages 20 and older was compiled by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
“This study provides a very important message that health is not just defined by weight or BMI,” says Bartfield. “Many others factors, such as waist circumference, need to be considered.”
More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese, according to the CDC.
“Hispanics tend to be at higher risk for weight gain around the waist which leads to higher rates of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes,” says Bartfield, who cares for clinically obese patients in the Chicago area. The Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery & Bariatric Care is designated a Level 1 facility under the Bariatric Surgery Center Network (BSCN) Accreditation Program of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). To achieve this accreditation, Loyola had to meet a number of rigorous institutional performance measures.
Illinois is now the 24th most obese state in the nation. According to the Trust for America’s Health, the adult obesity rate in Illinois is 28.1 percent, up from 23.2 percent in 2003 and from 12.1 percent in 1990. More than half of all Americans are overweight and more than 15 million people suffer from severe obesity.
RSS