Obesity: Fats Accumulating on a Higher Rate

U.S Government reported that there are more than 72 million U.S. adults, or 26.7 percent, who can be classified under the group, ‘obese’. Obesity has definitely become "a major public health threat" and is steadily worsening, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. "We need intensive, comprehensive and ongoing efforts to address obesity," CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a statement. "If we don't, more people will get sick and die from obesity-related conditions such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of death."
Observing the statistics in each state, the CDC found that 30 percent of adults in nine states are obese, in compared to what it was in the year 2000, where not a single state had an obesity prevalence of 30 percent or higher.
The medically accepted way to measure obesity is the ‘body mass index’, (BMI) which is calculated on the basis of the person’s height and weight. A BMI of 25 or more makes someone overweight and obesity begins at a BMI of 30. The survey found 2.4 million more people were obese in 2009 than in 2007, a 1.1 percentage point increase. "Recent estimates of the annual medical costs of obesity are as high as $147 billion. On average, persons who are obese have medical costs that are $1,429 more than persons of normal weight," the report reads.

**Published in Healthcare digital