75% of the Americans Will Be Obese by 2015

Junk food produces dangerous effects on the people living in the US. At the current weight gain tendency, Rubensian models will be the norm by 2015, with 75 % of U.S. adults being overweight and 41% obese, warned a recent Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis released on Wednesday. The research team investigated 20 researches approaching the weight and food behavior in the US, published in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews. "Obesity is a public health crisis. If the rate of obesity and overweight continues at this pace, by 2015, 75 % of adults and nearly 24 % of U.S. children and adolescents will be overweight or obese," said lead author Dr. Youfa Wang.

Adult overweight and obesity was assessed by employing a standard medical definition based on body mass index. People with a BMI of 25 or above are considered overweight, while those with BMIs of 30 or higher are morbidly obese, with a serious risk of heart disease, diabetes and of developing some forms of cancer.

Researches have revealed that in 2003 and 2004, 71 % of the adult men and 67 % of the adult women in the US were overweight or obese, with an obese adult population of 33 %. The number of Black Americans is even higher: about 80 % of black women aged 40 or over are overweight and 50 % are obese.

16 % of U.S. children and adolescents are overweight and 34 % are at risk of turning overweight, as federal government numbers revealed. "Every group is steadily getting heavier," Wang said.

"Our analysis showed patterns of obesity or overweight for various groups of Americans. Obesity is likely to continue to increase, and if nothing is done, it will soon become the leading preventable cause of death in the United States." said co-author May Beydoun.

In Europe too, the tendency is alarming, even if the levels are for the moment not as severe as they are in US. In 1980, Sweden was among the slimmest of the Western nations, but adult obesity has doubled from 5 % to 10 % by 2005 in both sexes; still, 50 % of the Swedish men and 36 % of the Swedish women are overweight.