No significant change seen in obesity rate for US adults from 2013 to 2023
Key takeaways:
- Obesity prevalence did not significantly change for U.S. adults from 2013 to 2023, though the rate of severe obesity increased.
- The percentage of children with obesity rose annually by 0.44 percentage points.
The percentage of U.S. adults with obesity did not significantly rise from 2013 to 2023, though a small uptick in the rate of obesity was seen for children and adolescents, according to data published in JAMA.
“From 2013 to August 2023, there were small increases in obesity in children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 years, driven by increases among males and children aged 2 to 5 years,” Samuel D. Emmerich, DVM, an epidemiologist at the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, told Healio. “In adults aged 20 years and older, severe obesity increased slightly, driven by increases among women and middle-aged adults. There were no significant changes in any other subgroups, in high weight-for-length or in high waist circumference.”
Emmerich and colleagues obtained data on obesity-related measures from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from the 2013-2014 cycle through the August 2021-August 2023 cycle. Children younger than 2 years were considered to have high waist-to-length if their measure was in the 97.7th percentile or higher according to WHO growth standards. Children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 years were defined as having obesity if they had a sex-specific BMI in the 95th percentile or higher, and were considered to have severe obesity with a sex-specific BMI at or above 120% of the 95th percentile. For adults aged 20 years or older, obesity was defined as a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or higher, severe obesity was considered a BMI of 40 kg/m2 or higher and high waist circumference was defined as higher than 102 cm for men or 88 cm for women.
There was no significant change in high waist-to-length rates for children younger than 2 years during the study. Obesity rates for children and adolescents increased by a mean 0.44 percentage points per year from 17.2% in 2013-2014 to 21.1% in 2021-2023 (P = .01). The prevalence of severe obesity did not significantly change for youths.
The rate of obesity did not change for most adults during the study period, with the overall prevalence sitting at 37.9% in 2013-2014 and at 40.3% in the 2021-2023 NHANES cycle (P = .29). Adults aged 40 to 59 years had an increase in obesity prevalence from 41% in 2013-2014 to 46.4% in 2021-2023 (P = .05). The rate of severe obesity climbed by a mean 0.23 percentage points annually from 7.7% in 2013-2014 to 9.4% in 2021-2023 (P = .03). There was no significant change in the proportion of adults with a high waist circumference from 2013-2014 to 2021-2023.
Emmerich said the small changes in trends were interesting to see compared with historical trends of increasing obesity rates in the U.S.
“Collecting these data and monitoring the population-level trends will allow us to show if trends in obesity-related measures continue to be small or start to plateau in the future,” Emmerich said.
For more information:
Samuel D. Emmerich, DVM, can be reached at semmerich@cdc.gov.
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