To say there’s an obesity epidemic in the United States would be an understatement. According to the American Heart Association, close to 78 million adults and 13 million kids in this country are considered obese.
And new research published in JAMA finds that obesity rates among women are way up—and more ladies than men are dealing with weight issues.
For the study, researchers reviewed health data from 5,455 adults (2,817 of whom were women) from 2013 and 2014, using body mass index (BMI) as a benchmark. They classified those with a BMI of 30 and up as obese and those with a BMI of 40 or higher as severely obese (what the researchers call “class 3 obesity”). What they found: 40 percent of women in America were obese (compared to 35 percent of men) during that timeframe. Plus, 10 percent of women qualified as "extremely obese," versus 6 percent of dudes.
The last time this survey was done, in 2005 and 2006, 35 percent of women were considered obese and 7 percent were thought to be very obese.
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The study authors didn’t examine why obesity rates are surging among women. (The National Institutes of Health says oversized food portions, a sedentary lifestyle, some hormone problems, and genetics can all lead to weight issues.) The only factor the researchers tested in this new study that had a measureable effect on BMI was education: Women who had schooling beyond high school were significantly less likely to be obese.
It’s worth pointing out that a March 2016 study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that BMI is not a reliable way to measure someone’s health. (Those researchers found that a lot of people who have BMIs in the obese range are healthy, and a lot of people with “normal” BMIs aren’t actually healthy.) Still, obesity has been linked to an increased likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
In an accompanying editorial, also published in JAMA, experts argue that obesity prevention for women should start at child-bearing age, stating “a number of reports have suggested that maternal obesity is associated with offspring birth weight, which in turn is associated with child obesity.” In other words, some of your risk for obesity later in life is determined before you’re even born.
The authors of the editorial point out that the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans could help. The guidelines offer specific recommendations, like eating a variety of veggies in different colors, noshing on a wide range of proteins (seafood and chicken are two examples), and making sure less than 10 percent of your diet is made up of added sugar. “These recommendations may be easier to follow than previous iterations and so have the potential to affect obesity rates,” they write.