Group: More than half in 39 states will be obese

MIKE STOBBE

AP Med­ical Writer

NEW YORK — We Amer­i­cans already know how fat we are. Can it get much worse?

Appar­ently, yes, accord­ing to an advo­cacy group that pre­dicts that by 2030 more than half the peo­ple in the vast major­ity of states will be obese.

Mis­sis­sippi is expected to retain its crown as the fat­test state in the nation for at least two more decades. The report pre­dicts 67 per­cent of that state’s adults will be obese by 2030; that would be an astound­ing increase from Mississippi’s cur­rent 35 per­cent obe­sity rate.

The new pro­jec­tions were released Tues­day by Trust for America’s Health with fund­ing from the Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion. Trust for America’s Health reg­u­larly reports on obe­sity to raise aware­ness, mostly rely­ing on gov­ern­ment figures.

The group’s dis­mal fore­cast goes beyond the 42 per­cent national obe­sity level that fed­eral health offi­cials project by 2030. The group pre­dicts every state would have rates above 44 per­cent by that time, although it didn’t cal­cu­late an over­all national average.

About two-thirds of Amer­i­cans are over­weight now. That includes those who are obese, a group that accounts for about 36 per­cent. Obe­sity rates have been hold­ing steady in recent years. Obe­sity is defined as hav­ing a body-mass index of 30 or more, a mea­sure of weight for height.

Trust for America’s Health offi­cials said their pro­jec­tions are based in part on state-by-state sur­veys by the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion from 1999 through 2010. The phone sur­veys ask res­i­dents to self-report their height and weight; peo­ple aren’t always so accu­rate about that.

The researchers then looked at other national data track­ing res­i­dents’ weight and mea­sure­ments and made adjust­ments for how much peo­ple in each state might fudge the truth about their weight. They also tried to apply recent trends in obe­sity rates, along with other fac­tors, to make the predictions.

Offi­cials with Trust for America’s Health said they believe their pro­jec­tions are reasonable.

And New York City’s health com­mis­sioner agreed. “If we don’t do any­thing, I think that’s a fair pre­dic­tion,” said Dr. Thomas Far­ley whose city banned just super­size sug­ary drinks to curb obesity.

Trust for Amer­ica projects that by 2030, 13 states would have adult obe­sity rates above 60 per­cent, 39 states might have rates above 50 per­cent, and every state would have rates above 44 percent.

Even in the thinnest state — Col­orado, where about one-fifth of res­i­dents are obese — 45 per­cent would be obese by 2030.

Per­haps more sur­pris­ing, Delaware is expected to have obe­sity lev­els nearly as high as Mis­sis­sippi. Delaware cur­rently is in the mid­dle of the pack when it comes to self-reported obe­sity rates.

The report didn’t detail why some states’ rates were expected to jump more than oth­ers. It also didn’t cal­cu­late an aver­age adult obe­sity rate for the entire nation in 2030, as the CDC did a few months ago. But a researcher who worked on the Trust for America’s Health study acknowl­edged that report’s num­bers point toward a fig­ure close to 50 percent.

CDC offi­cials declined to com­ment on the new report.

Whichever esti­mates you trust most, it’s clear that the nation’s weight prob­lem is going to con­tinue, esca­lat­ing the num­ber of cases of dia­betes, heart dis­ease and stroke, said Jeff Levi, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Trust for America’s Health.

By 2030, med­ical costs from treat­ing obesity-related dis­eases are likely to increase by $48 bil­lion, to $66 bil­lion per year, his report said.

The focus of so much of the ongo­ing debate about health care is over con­trol­ling costs, Levi said. “… We can only achieve it by address­ing obe­sity. Oth­er­wise, we’re just tin­ker­ing around the margins.”

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