Severe Obesity Is on the Rise in the US

This file photo shows a closeup of a beam scale in New York, April 3, 2018. (AP)
This file photo shows a closeup of a beam scale in New York, April 3, 2018. (AP)
TT

Severe Obesity Is on the Rise in the US

This file photo shows a closeup of a beam scale in New York, April 3, 2018. (AP)
This file photo shows a closeup of a beam scale in New York, April 3, 2018. (AP)

Obesity is high and holding steady in the US, but the proportion of those with severe obesity — especially women — has climbed since a decade ago, according to new government research.

The US obesity rate is about 40%, according to a 2021-2023 survey of about 6,000 people. Nearly 1 in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity.

The overall obesity rate appeared to tick down vs. the 2017-2020 survey, but the change wasn’t considered statistically significant; the numbers are small enough that there’s mathematical chance they didn’t truly decline.

That means it’s too soon to know whether new treatments for obesity, including blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, can help ease the epidemic of the chronic disease linked to a host of health problems, according to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer who led the latest study.

“We simply can’t see down to that detailed level to prescription medication use and compare that to changes in obesity prevalence,” Emmerich said. “Hopefully that is something we can see in the future.”

Most telling though, the results that show that the overall obesity rate in the US has not changed significantly in a decade, even as the rate of severe obesity climbed from nearly 8% in the 2013-2014 survey to nearly 10% in the most recent one. Before that, obesity had increased rapidly in the US since the 1990s, federal surveys showed.

Measures of obesity and severe obesity are determined according to body mass index, a calculation based on height and weight. People with a BMI of 30 are considered to have obesity; those with a BMI of 40 or higher have severe obesity. BMI is regarded as a flawed tool but remains widely used by doctors to screen for obesity.

“Seeing increases in severe obesity is even more alarming because that’s the level of obesity that’s most highly associated with some of the highest levels of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and lower quality of life,” said Solveig Cunningham, an Emory University global health professor who specializes in obesity.

Cunningham, who was not involved in the new study, said it’s not clear why rates of severe obesity are going up, or why they were higher among women. Factors could include the effects of hormones, the impact of childbearing or other causes that require further study, she said.

The new study also found that obesity rates varied by education. Almost 32% of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported having obesity, compared with about 45% of those with some college or a high school diploma or less.

The new report follows the release earlier this month of data from US states and territories that showed that in 2023, the rate of obesity ranged widely by place, from a high of more than 41% of adults in West Virginia to a low of less than 24% of adults in Washington, DC. Rates were highest in the Midwest and the South.

All US states and territories posted obesity rates higher than 20%. In 23 states, more than 1 in 3 adults had obesity, the data showed. Before 2013, no state had a rate that high, said Dr. Alyson Goodman, who leads a CDC team focused on population health.

Color-coded US maps tracking the change have gradually shifted from green and yellow, the hues associated with lower obesity rates, to orange and dark red, linked to higher prevalence.

“Sometimes, when you look at all that red, it’s really discouraging,” Goodman said.

But, she added, recent emphasis on understanding obesity as a metabolic disease and new interventions, such as the new class of weight-loss drugs, gives her hope.

The key is preventing obesity in the first place, starting in early childhood, Cunningham said. Even when people develop obesity, preventing additional weight gain should be the goal.

“It’s really hard to get obesity to reverse at the individual level and at the population level,” Cunningham said. “I guess it’s not surprising that we’re not seeing downward shifts in the prevalence of obesity.”



King Charles III Set to Visit Australia, Samoa on Trip Spanning a Dozen Time Zones

Britain's King Charles III (R) meets British actor Idris Elba and young people during an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunities, at St James's Palace in central London on July 12, 2024. (AFP)
Britain's King Charles III (R) meets British actor Idris Elba and young people during an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunities, at St James's Palace in central London on July 12, 2024. (AFP)
TT

King Charles III Set to Visit Australia, Samoa on Trip Spanning a Dozen Time Zones

Britain's King Charles III (R) meets British actor Idris Elba and young people during an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunities, at St James's Palace in central London on July 12, 2024. (AFP)
Britain's King Charles III (R) meets British actor Idris Elba and young people during an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunities, at St James's Palace in central London on July 12, 2024. (AFP)

King Charles III, who is 75 and battling cancer, will travel halfway around the world to Samoa this month to take his seat as the head of the Commonwealth and highlight the existential threat that climate change poses for Pacific island nations.

He will also return to Australia, a country that played a key role in Charles’ adolescence — giving him the chance to be an almost normal teenager during the six months he spent at Timbertop school outside Melbourne in the 1960s. The visit marks the first time since he assumed the throne that Charles will visit one of the 14 countries outside the United Kingdom where the monarch is head of state.

The tour, from Friday to Oct. 26, is a watershed moment for Charles, who is slowly returning to public duties after a hiatus following his cancer diagnosis in early February. The decision to undertake such a long journey is seen as a reflection of his workaholic tendencies and his wish to put his stamp on the monarchy after waiting some seven decades to become king, The AP reported.

“He doesn’t just want to be a sort of caretaker king, waiting in a sense for his own death and the accession of William,’’ said Anna Whitelock, a professor of the history of the monarchy at City University, London, referring to Prince William. “He wants to be active in the world.’’

Charles’ globetrotting itinerary comes as he works to shore up support for the monarchy at home and abroad two years after ascending the throne.

It’s a challenge the king will face in Australia, a country with a strong anti-monarchy movement.

Charles and Queen Camilla arrive in Australia with a schedule that includes a visit to Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian War Memorial and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander memorial. The king will also meet with professors Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer to learn about their work on melanoma, one of Australia’s most common cancers, while the queen’s program will include joining a discussion on domestic violence.

Charles first visited Australia as a 17-year-old, when he spent two terms at Timbertop, chopping wood, going on long hikes and meeting boys who welcomed him, unlike his classmates at Gordonstoun in Scotland. The future king returned to the UK a more confident, disciplined young man, according to his biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby.

“Part of this change was in the nature of adolescence, but some of it lay in the opportunity he had been given in Australia to find himself — free from Gordonstoun, away from his parents, away from the British press, away from the suffocating certainties of royal life,” Dimbleby wrote in 1994.

Charles later toured the country as a young prince and visited again soon after he married his first wife, the late Princess Diana.

But this time he returns as king not only of the United Kingdom, but also of Australia. That’s not an easy thing to be.

Around 45% of Australians voted to ditch the monarchy in 1999, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labour Party has long aimed to hold a second referendum on the issue. But those plans were put on hold after Australians overwhelmingly rejected a plan to give greater political rights to Indigenous people in a referendum held last year.

While many Australians still favor becoming a republic, it isn’t central to the national debate these days, said Ian Kemish, a former Australian diplomat. People are more focused on the economy, the rising cost of living and the ascendance of China.

The king’s visit helps to bolster ties between Australia and the UK, which recently signed a tripartite security agreement with the United States. The pact, known as AUKUS, will equip the Australian navy with nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, while also increasing military cooperation and information sharing in other areas.

“In my view, we have bigger fish to fry here in Australia right now than the question of whether we should continue as part of a constitutional monarchy or become a republic,” Kemish said.

As important as Australia is to Charles, his lifelong passion is the environment, and climate change is at the top of the agenda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent nations, most of which have historic ties to the UK.

Charles has built a reputation as an outspoken environmental campaigner, calling on world leaders to work together to curb the carbon emissions that cause global warming. He will attend the summit for the first time as head of the Commonwealth, a role first championed by his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Island nations like Samoa are on the front lines of the climate emergency, with the United Nations saying they are already feeling the effects of rising sea levels, ocean acidification and more intense tropical storms.

Charles is a “genuine eco-warrior” who has earned the respect of people around the world for his stance on climate change, Whitelock said.

“Focusing specifically around environmental issues, I think, will really play to his strengths and show that actually he has a really meaningful role he could play in the Commonwealth,” she said. “And I think he knows that and will absolutely relish that.”

Charles’ presence in Samoa may help focus international attention on the threat faced by Pacific island nations, said Kemish, who once served as Australia’s ambassador to Papua New Guinea.

“These are the countries that will go below the surface of the ocean first and where the impact can be seen most dramatically,’’ Kemish said. “And I think it’s important for global attention to be brought to this part of the world. So, yes, I think a bit more than a photo opportunity. We certainly hope so.”