CDC Sees Significant Increase of Obese Americans, Reveals Most Overweight State

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data showing that more than seven in 10 (73.6 percent) United States adults aged 20 or older are either overweight or obese. Although the rates in children and adolescents have decreased, the rates overall have seen a drastic rise in recent decades.

Obesity costs the health care system around $173 billion per year, and the diet and weight loss control industries rake in around $72 billion, according to WalletHub. That website also chronicled the most obese and least obese states in the nation, with West Virginia falling in the former category and Utah in the latter.

The recent CDC reporting also shows that around 72.2 million Americans over the age of 6 were completely inactive in 2021, and lack of physical activity remains a leading cause of obesity.

According to research posted by the National Library of Medicine in 2021, the proportion of obesity in HIV-positive patients has also increased since the introduction of antiretroviral therapy (ART). The study points at contemporary ART regimens being a contributing factor, such as inclusion of integrase strand transfer inhibitors and tenofovir alafenamide.

The report states that weight gain after starting ART is associated with reduced risk of mortality in underweight and normal weight individuals, but the risk for metabolic diseases increased. The weight gain in HIV-positive patients also showed greater risk as compared to HIV-negative patients.

In a prospective U.S. Military study, results showed that the percentage of overweight or obese HIV patients increased 28 percent from 1985-1990, with an additional 51 percent increase between 1996-2004. After studying 14,000 people between the United States and Canada, the obesity rate increased from 9 percent to 18 percent between 1998 and 2010. After the initiation, 22 percent of individuals who had a normal BMI also became overweight, and 18 percent of already overweight individuals became obese within 3 years of starting ART.