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Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say

By | November 5, 2010, 8:34 AM PDT

If you thought Americans couldn’t possibly get any bigger, think again.

Researchers at Harvard University say America’s obesity epidemic will continue to spread until at least 42 percent of adults are obese, according to a new study.

That conclusion defies some experts’ claims that the obesity rate in the U.S., settled at 34 percent for the past five years, has peaked.

According to the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another 34 percent of American adults are classified as “overweight” but not “obese.”

“Our analysis suggests that while people have gotten better at gaining weight since 1971, they haven’t gotten any better at losing weight,” study lead author Alison Hill said in a statement. “Specifically, the rate of weight gain due to social transmission has grown quite rapidly.”

The researchers arrived at the estimate by applying mathematical modeling to 40 years of Framingham Heart Study data.

What they found is that obesity is proliferating among American adults through social networks. No, that doesn’t mean Facebook — rather, that means that you’re more likely to be obese if your friends are, too.

Researchers David Rand, Martin Nowak, Nicholas Christakis and Hill categorized obesity’s spread in three ways:

  • The rate at which obesity spreads person to person.
  • The rate at which obesity spreads through non-social means, such as through unhealthy foods or sedentary lifestyles.
  • The rate of “recovery” from obesity — weight loss that returns a person’s body mass index, or BMI, below 30.

The best-case scenario? America’s obesity rate could rise above 42 percent of adults. One caveat is that it could take four decades for that shift to occur, a more gradual increase than what’s been experienced in the last 40 years but frightening nonetheless.

The researchers also found that a non-obese American adult has a 2 percent chance of becoming obese in any given year. For every obese social contact, the number rises by 0.4 percentage points.

Have five obese friends? Your risk of becoming obese has doubled.

Interestingly, an obese adult has a 4 percent chance of losing enough weight to return to the “overweight” category. The problem: this figure has remained constant since 1971.

Their work was published this week in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

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Andrew Nusca

About Andrew Nusca

Andrew Nusca is editor of SmartPlanet.

Andrew Nusca

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew Nusca is editor of SmartPlanet and an associate editor for ZDNet. Previously, he worked at Money, Men's Vogue and Popular Mechanics magazines. He holds degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and New York University. He based in New York but resides in Philadelphia.

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Andrew Nusca

Andrew Nusca
Andrew Nusca does not hold any investments in the companies he covers.
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RE: Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say
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Posted by rbonham51
5th Nov 2010
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RE: Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say
"Interestingly, an obese adult has a 4 percent chance of losing enough weight to return to the ?overweight? category. The problem: this figure has remained constant since 1971."

So obviously all of the crap that they have been shoving down our throats since the 70's hasn't improved things.

What has changed? Well, what is considered "obese" has been completely blown out of proportion; not to mention that the BMI is a lousy judge of whether or not a person is overweight/obese to begin with.

At my healthy weight the BMI considers me "overweight". What am I supposed to do, become anorexic?

All crap like this does is help shatter people's self image. For some odd reason our society looks at being "sickly" skinny as "healthy" with complete disregard to the actualy shape that a person is in.

The media has caused too much focus on being skinny and all that the health administration has accomplished through thier campaigns is the OPPOSITE of what they set out to do.
Posted by keitha73
5th Nov 2010
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RE: Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say
I suggest the person of comment 2, keitha 73 to spend a fortnight in
Europe, preferably Denmark, or Holland. She can see how out of
touch with reality she/he is.

However, obese people live just as long as non-obese people but
are more sickly in the later years. That is the problem. They should
take up smoking.
Posted by jackvandijk
5th Nov 2010
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RE: Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say
It sounds like these researchers are recommending that fat people should be shunned, or at least only tolerated in small numbers. I'm guessing we're not going to get a public service announcement to that effect. "For their own good, people should limit themselves to one or two fat friends. Choose wisely!"
Posted by dmm99
5th Nov 2010
0 Votes
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RE: Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say
Go to youtube

Search for anorexia

and see the effect that this brainwashing has on young people in this country.

Being underweight causes many more health problems than being overweight. Not to mention what they consider overweight is outrageous.
Posted by keitha73
5th Nov 2010
0 Votes
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Use Readily Available Resources & Make Wise Selections; Reform HealthCan't
Didn't people pay any attention during formative education years? Health & physical education have their purposes so it's a wonder why there is such an issue. It is never too late for understanding and implementing sound lifestyle choices.
Avoid fad diets and inane packaged foods such as bars, shakes, or prepared meals because those methods are out of touch and not able to sustain longlasting lifestyle habits or complete nutritional requirements. Beside those matters, they are merely profit-making schemes. If it doesn't grow from the soil or requires a chemistry background to analyze the ingredients then avoid it. The other matter is finding time to implement any measure of activity that enhances physical fitness. The basis is very simple to understand and relatively easy to incorporate. Yes, the path is rife with hucksters and shams because this is the United Scams of America but those illusions can be avoided. The amount of focus on this easily incorporated preventative matter is absurd when the real issues involve addressing why there isn't enough attention toward the timely provision of remedies that readily cure disease and injuries that don't involve long-term suffering and drug reliance/addiction from prescriptive medications that otherwise allow so-called healthcan't insurers to enhance profits at the expense of human values and indulge pharmaceutical interests. Those are the real matters requiring reform not the easy things that are being made to seem so complicated and the way the citizens are being sold out to unethical health pirates that profit from others suffering. The USA still has far to go because forcing people to throw money at a still-broken system is not the answer.
Posted by donnydo77@...
5th Nov 2010
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RE: Obesity rate will reach 42 percent, Harvard researchers say
If you've been through a fast food line recently or are buying pre-made foods at the grocery store, then that is the problem.

We need to get back to whole foods, farmers markets and eating basic. Processed foods and fast foods rely on corn sugar and trans-fats that are very unhealthy. Don't believe their ads or anything they are selling on the internet. There is a difference in the kinds of sugars and fats we eat! Slow and whole foods is the way we need to eat. All trans-fats should be banned.
Posted by mor2009
6th Nov 2010
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