More Than Two-Thirds of U.S. Adults Now Overweight or Obese

Fewer than one-third of Americans are currently at a healthy weight, with the rest of the population either overweight or obese, a new report finds.

About 35% of men and 37% of women are obese. Another 40% of men and 30% of women are overweight, researchers said in the June 22 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Obesity is not getting better. It’s getting worse, and it’s really scary. It’s not looking pretty,” said Lin Yang, a postdoctoral research associate at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Obesity has been linked to a number of chronic health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, and arthritis, Yang said.

“This generation of Americans is the first that will have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation, and obesity is one of the biggest contributors to this shortened life expectancy because it is driving a lot of chronic health conditions,” she said.

The new report used data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey gathered between 2007 and 2012, involving more than 15,000 men and women age 25 and older.

Based on the data, researchers estimate than more than 36 million men and nearly 29 million women in the United States are currently overweight. About 32 million men and 36 million women are obese, the researchers found.