
As of 2010, about 36% of adults were obese, which is roughly 30 pounds over a healthy weight, and 6% were severely obese, which is 100 or more pounds over a healthy weight.
"The obesity problem is likely to get much worse without a major public health intervention," says Eric Finkelstein, a health economist with Duke University Global Health Institute and lead researcher on the new study.
The analysis was presented at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Weight of the Nation" meeting. The study is being published online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Finkelstein, Trogdon and colleagues predicted future obesity rates with a statistical analysis using different CDC data, including body mass index, of several hundred thousand people. Body mass is a number that takes into account height and weight. Their estimates suggest obesity is likely to continue to increase, although not as fast as it has in the past.
Finkelstein says the estimates assume that things have gotten about as bad as they can get in the USA, in terms of an environment that promotes obesity. The country "is already saturated" with fast-food restaurants, cheap junk food and electronic technologies that render people sedentary at home and work, he says. "We don't expect the environment to get much worse than it is now, or at least we hope it doesn't."
In an earlier study, Finkelstein and experts from the CDC estimated that medical-related costs of obesity may be as high as $147 billion a year, or roughly 9% of medical expenditures. An obese person costs an average of $1,400 more in medical expenses a year than someone who is at a healthy weight, they found. Other researchers have estimated the costs may be even higher.
If the obesity rate stays at 2010 levels instead of rising to 42% as predicted, then the country could save more than $549.5 billion in weight-related medical expenditures between now and 2030, says study co-author Trogdon.
Patrick O'Neil, president of the Obesity Society, a group of weight-control researchers and professionals, says that these new projections "indicate that even more people will be losing loved ones and others will be suffering sickness and living lives that fall short of their promise because of obesity.
There's no one-size-fits all solution to a complex problem that has been decades in the making, says Sam Kass, assistant chef and senior policy advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives at the White House. "This national conversation — this national movement — must continue. This is literally life and death we are talking about."
How can you lose weight and keep it off for good?
Successful dieters in the National Weight Control Registry, a group of 10,000 people who have lost 30 pounds or more and maintained that loss for a year or more, have developed many weight-control strategies. For instance, they:
•Follow a low-calorie, low-fat diet of about 1,800 calories a day.
•Keep track of food intake.
•Count calories, carbs or fat grams or use a commercial weight-loss program to track food intake.
•Walk about an hour a day or burn the same calories doing other physical activities.
•Eat breakfast regularly, often including whole grains and low-fat dairy products.
•Limit dining out to an average of three times a week, and fast food to less than once a week.
•Eat similar foods often and don't splurge much.
•Watch fewer than 10 hours of TV a week.
•Weigh themselves at least once a week.
ref : http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-07/obesity-projections-adults/54791430/1
ref : http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-07/obesity-projections-adults/54791430/1
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