Obesity rate among US adults fell in 2023 for first time in over a decade: Study

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Hill

12/14/24 12:13 PM ET


The obesity rate among U.S. adults fell in 2023 for the first time in over a decade, according to a new study released on Friday.

The study published in the journal JAMA Health Forum found that obesity nationwide has dropped from 46 percent in 2022 to 45.6 percent last year. The researchers also discovered that obesity has declined substantially in the South, including among women older adults, ages 66 to 75.

“In the U.S overall, obesity was on the decline, led by the South, but in some regions that weren’t the case,” computational epidemiologist Benjamin Rader and the study’s author told NBC News. “We also saw large drops among Black Americans, but we saw increases in obesity among Asian Americans,” he added.

The study was conducted with over 16.7 million adults from 2013 to 2023. The authors looked at people from different age groups, races, sexes, ethnicities and regions. The researchers examined body mass index (BMI) figures that were observed from people’s health records.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5040586-obesity-rate-dip-study/

---

Link to study PUBLICATION - Changes in Adult Obesity Trends in the US

[Meadowoak]

1. We'll all look like Ethiopians this time next year.

[FirstLight]

3. So...it's the new "ozempic" types of drugs? orrrrrr.....

nobody can afford fuckin food

I would like to lose some weight, my arthritis can tell I'm carrying more than my little 5'1" frame should have on it.
But i actually dropped about 5 lbs in the month after my ex left, probably not stress eating and she had very fatty foods she'd cook. I can live on turkey sandwiches and coffee lol
~ ~
Now my kid and his GF and baby are staying with me till they can get a place. (They were living in an RV in KS and I got them out here) I cannot believe how skinny he is
They told me they'd feed the baby all the food and each have a can of whatever for dinner, that was all they could afford. Some days it was just green beans for them...

I'm scared for the next year, for us all

[Karasu]

4. "Nobody can afford fuckin food" indeed...and they really think tariffs and fascism are going to solve that. LOL

[Greybnk48]

15. Eating healthy is expensive. Fattening, unhealthy foods and living on bread,

noodles, potatoes, rice and processed foods is cheap and very unhealthy. Not only does it make anyone fat, it feeds type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and all kinds of inflammatory issues.

These drugs will need to be prescribed together with instructions on what to eat and what to avoid or a lot of people won't feel the full benefit. That said, what the drugs do is knock down your appetite, so people will lose weight by mere eating smaller portions. Hopefully better health will still kick in.

[at140]

27. "nobody can afford fuckin food "

Nailed it right there.

[FakeNoose]

5. This time period includes the Covid lockdown

I didn't go to ANY restaurants for almost a year from mid-20 to mid-21. What about you?

I did shop in grocery stores, of course. But I spent as little time as possible inside the stores and wore masks the entire time while shopping. No parties, no get-togethers with friends.

I can say that shopping was not a hobby or a pasttime for more than a year because of Covid. And I know that I lost weight without even trying during that horrible time.

[NickB79]

12. Obesity was a high risk factor for COVID as well

I wonder if the numbers dropped in part because a lot of obese people simply died?

[FakeNoose]

16. That's a good point, some were probably trying to lose extra pounds

I just refrained from socializing, attending parties, drinking at my social club, etc. Even my choir practices were called off for over a year. I'm sure we all cut back from March 2020 (the initial lockdown) until the Covid vaccines were available at least a year later.

My best friend passed away in April 2020, and none of us were allowed to attend her funeral. We all made sacrifices and I'll never forget that horrible time. I'll never forgive Chump for doing NOTHING to alleviate or mitigate the danger to our country.

Sorry for the rant! I'm done now.

[Prairie Gates]

26. Yup

I'm not sure if the data would support it, but this could well have been titled "COVID killed so many obese people that it resulted in a surprise decline of the obesity rate." I suspect nobody who wants to be funded by the federal government over the next four years will make that claim quite that way, though.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

30. That was my first thought.

[nmmi]

33. The obesity rate climbed year-over-year every year for the ten year period, except that from 2022 to 2023

it fell. I can't believe this is because of higher obesity mortality in 2023 compared to 2022, and yet higher obesity mortality was not enough of a factor to bring the obesity rate down from 2019 to 2020 (a pre-covid year to an intense covid year), or from 2020 to 2021, or from 2021 to 2022, but suddenly, it's the explanation for a drop from 2022 to 2023. I'm just not buying it.

[bdamomma]

6. I can

imagine what people will be looking like in a year from now. Elon Musk (that POS) said Americans will be seeing "hardship". Eat, you fat cats....karma will bite you hard.

[maxsolomon]

20. Me too. I imagine there will be just as many obese people as now.

A famine in America is an absurd prediction.

[nmmi]

7. To save people from having to look, the full article said nothing about drugs like Ozempic

Last edited Sat Dec 14, 2024, 10:16 PM - Edit history (1)

But I presume that's a factor. The article didn't give any reasons for the downturn in obesity from 2022 to 2023

On another issue - I don't think Covid lockdowns were much of a factor in either 2022 or 2023, but I can'f find documentation for 2022, there might have been some restrictions in some states or cities in 2022 --

The study published in the journal JAMA Health Forum found that obesity nationwide has dropped from 46 percent in 2022 to 45.6 percent last year.

Anyway, if there were still some restrictions in 2022 (and none in 2023), one would expect a rise in obesity from 2022 to 2023.

And if Covid lockdowns were a big factor, one would expect to see a downturn in obesity from say 2019 to 2020

(note they aren't saying that it's a downturn from between 2013 and 2023 vs. a prior 10-year period that didn't have the Covid lockdown years).

and yet another excerpt from the article -- we've got a long way to go --

A new research study, that was released in mid-November, found that almost three-quarters of Americans are considered obese or overweight, with greater spikes among those between the ages 5 to 24.

I'm in the one quarter, I'm not sure why, since I eat plenty. But I eat out maybe 2 times a month, and never order takeout (restaurant food is dangerously high sodium, and anyway isn't better than anything I make). I minimize eating of canned and boxed food because most of those are high sodium, even the so-called low-sodium varieties. And plenty have too much saturated fat too.

I average the USDA-recommended 2.5 cups of veggies a day (either frozen or fresh), and that presumably cuts down on the amount of high-calorie-dense food I might otherwise have.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. "the full article said nothing about drugs like Ozempic"

Because for this data (covering 2022 - 2023), only one GLP-1 drug was approved for that use ( "weight loss" ) (Ozempic is actually NOT approved for this indication) -

FDA Approves New Drug Treatment for Chronic Weight Management, First Since 2014

For Immediate Release:
June 04, 2021

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy (semaglutide) injection (2.4 mg once weekly) for chronic weight management in adults with obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related condition (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or high cholesterol), for use in addition to a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity. This under-the-skin injection is the first approved drug for chronic weight management in adults with general obesity or overweight since 2014. The drug is indicated for chronic weight management in patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 27 kg/m2 or greater who have at least one weight-related ailment or in patients with a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or greater.

(snip)

An additional one was approved at the end of 2023 -

FDA Approves New Medication for Chronic Weight Management

For Immediate Release:
November 08, 2023

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Zepbound (tirzepatide) injection for chronic weight management in adults with obesity (body mass index of 30 kilograms per square meter (kg/ m2) or greater) or overweight (body mass index of 27 kg/m2 or greater) with at least one weight-related condition (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol) for use, in addition to a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity. Tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound, is already approved under the trade name Mounjaro to be used along with diet and exercise to help improve blood sugar (glucose) in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

(snip)

It's definitely possible that the reduction is COVID-related (i.e., the millions who may have contracted it and lost weight from any extended more severe forms, where some of the symptoms have included loss of taste/smell AND gastrointestinal ailments, as there are ACE-2 receptors in the gastro system where the COVID virus can land, leading to diarrhea, etc). Sadly many who contracted it during the early 2020/2021 outbreak died, and post-vaccine availability, the deaths were reduced but there were still some Omicron-related waves that were worse than others into 2022.





(the above tracked actual hospital admissions where many more might not have needed to be in the hospital but were experiencing some near-severe symptoms that might have lasted several weeks or more)

[nmmi]

9. Thanks much for the research!

I certainly remember that these weight loss drugs were a thing back in 2023
and being used by many for weight loss purposes whether approved for that use or not.

Just to check out my memory, here's a Google search for news items for Ozempic in the period 1/1/2023 to 12/31/2023.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ozempic&num=10&sca_esv=c4f44a6515336e1c&biw=1430&bih=806&sxsrf=ADLYWIJJwvGa10fsnCO2V8_yjgyMFIKysA%3A1734268234027&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2023%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F2023&tbm=nws

So I remain convinced that these new used-for-weight-loss drugs has something to do with the drop in obesity from 2022 to 2023.

I also maintain that Covid was more of a factor in 2022 than in 2023, so if people were eating out less and suffering more issues in food consumption and food digestion in 2022 than in 2023,

It's definitely possible that the reduction is COVID-related (i.e., the millions who may have contracted it and lost weight from any extended more severe forms, where some of the symptoms have included loss of taste/smell AND gastrointestinal ailments, as there are ACE-2 receptors in the gastro system where the COVID virus can land, leading to diarrhea, etc)

that would be a factor for expecting a rise in obesity from 2022 to 2023 rather than what actually happened, the reverse?

I just don't think people were eating more healthily and exercising more in 2023 than in 2022.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. I think specifically in the case for the brand "Ozempic"

it was (and still is) being used "off-label" for "weight loss" but had not been approved (like Wegovy or Munjoro) specifically for "weight loss".

FDA has even noted that patients should use a drug like Wegovy instead of Ozempic if wanting to use it specifically for "weight loss". But any ancillary weight loss from Ozempic was most likely due to that being an obvious "side effect" of its use for type 2 diabetes (which is what originally triggered the desire to use these types of drugs for weight loss).

It's definitely possible that the reduction is COVID-related (i.e., the millions who may have contracted it and lost weight from any extended more severe forms, where some of the symptoms have included loss of taste/smell AND gastrointestinal ailments, as there are ACE-2 receptors in the gastro system where the COVID virus can land, leading to diarrhea, etc)

that would be a factor for expecting a rise in obesity from 2022 to 2023 rather than what actually happened, the reverse?

I don't know if there would necessarily be a quick "rise" in obesity after a bout of COVID as it often took weeks to resolve the symptoms and in some cases, people continued to have the loss of taste/smell for months and even years, and there were many articles about health entities attempting methods to "retrain" a person's senses because of that. E.g. (as a recent one) -

When Loss of Smell and Taste Occurs with Long COVID

BY Jon Klein June 24, 2024

Patricia H.* knew that something was wrong. “One night I sat down with my boyfriend to eat dinner and thought, ‘Did I not spice this chicken? Because it has no flavor.’” She then realized that she couldn’t smell her dinner either. “My boyfriend looked at me and said, ‘You have COVID!’” He was right. It was March 2020. Fortunately, Patricia didn’t have any other symptoms. But more than four years later, she still hasn’t regained her sense of taste and smell.

She’s certainly not alone. An estimated 60% of patients infected in 2021 with SARS-Co-V2, the virus that causes COVID, lost some ability to taste or smell, according to research published in 2023. Even though such changes are usually transient, the research also found that one-quarter of those patients didn’t experience a full recovery and were left with a diminished sense of smell.

(snip)

I would expect loss of the olfactory senses would impact appetite to a degree.

[nmmi]

11. Still not buying the Covid connection -- it didn't cause a drop in obesity from 2019 to 2020!!! or 2020 to 2021, or

2021 to 2022, but suddenly the smell and taste issue is a significant enough factor to finally bring obesity down from 2022 to 2023. Nope.

I'm aware of long covid, and to some degree its cumulative (in chronic cases), but it's just not doing it for me as an explanation, I guess.

I'm still stuck on the weight-loss drugs plural (Ozempic was meant as just an example).

[BumRushDaShow]

13. There are other underlying things

like here in Philly, we enacted a "Sugary Drink Tax" in 2017 (other cities had done so as well). A few years later, some research showed mixed results about the impact but there was some impact -

Journal of Health Economics
Volume 67, September 2019, 102225
The impact of the Philadelphia beverage tax on purchases and consumption by adults and children

John Cawley a, David Frisvold b, Anna Hill c, David Jones c

Abstract
Numerous U.S. cities have recently enacted taxes on sweetened beverages. To examine the effects of the beverage tax of 1.5 cents per ounce in Philadelphia, we surveyed adults and children in Philadelphia and nearby comparison communities both before the tax and nearly one year after implementation. We find that the tax reduced purchases in Philadelphia stores and that Philadelphia residents increased purchases of taxed beverages outside of the city. The tax reduced the frequency of adults’ soda consumption by 31 percent, but had no detectable impacts on adults’ consumption of other beverages. The tax had no detectable impact on children’s consumption of soda or all taxed beverages, although children who were frequent consumers prior to the tax reduced their consumption after the tax.

(snip)

This along with some sustained efforts in many urban areas to get healthier foods to "food desert" locations might actually (finally) be helping.

[drmeow]

18. The JAMA article itself

indicated that they only looked at regional differences in Ozempic-like drug prescriptions:

For a subset of 10 625 745 individuals with available 2023 insurance claims, GLP-1RA dispensing differed by region (South, 6.0%; Midwest, 5.1%; Northeast, 4.4%; West, 3.4%).

The data is cross-sectional so the authors can't make cause-effect claims. They do say in the article:

The most notable decrease was in the South, which had the highest observed per capita GLP-1RA dispensing rate. However, dispensing does not necessarily mean uptake, and the South also experienced disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality among individuals with obesity.

[nmmi]

19. Thanks much for the info 😃 /nt

[maxsolomon]

21. You could just have a metabolism that burns calories well.

I have a 5'-8" friend from Hong Kong who eats like he's a powerlifter, even into his 50s. He weighs about 150.

I'm overweight, but I haven't budged from my current 215 in 10 years, up or down.

[nmmi]

23. I was thinking about my past history, where I almost made it into the obese category

I'm in the one quarter [neither overweight nor obese], I'm not sure why, since I eat plenty. But I eat out maybe 2 times a month, and never order takeout (restaurant food is dangerously high sodium, and anyway isn't better than anything I make). I minimize eating of canned and boxed food because most of those are high sodium, even the so-called low-sodium varieties. And plenty have too much saturated fat too.

I used to be 230 pounds at 6'2" (BMI 29.5, obese starts at 30) after I quit smoking. I didn't think much of it, until one day I walked by a store window and the sun's angle and reflection was just right for it to be like a mirror, and I saw I had a big big gut. In the subsequent years and decades, I had since reduced it to the 180's and 190's for the most part.

But now I'm in the 170's and have been for more than a year, so that's what I'm (pleasantly) somewhat surprised about. But I'll take it.

177lb = 22.7 bmi. Overweight begins at 25 per this bmi calculator that I pulled up.

https://www.hims.com/lp/wl-start-hims-bmi-calculator

[Greybnk48]

14. I'm one of them. I was put on Mounjaro Sept. 2023. I've lost 70+ lbs.

Last edited Sun Dec 15, 2024, 02:00 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm still deemed to be "overweight" with a BMI of 27, but I'm about 7 lbs. heavier than I was in high school! ffs!

Edit: for weight loss only, Mounjaro is marketed as Zepbound.

I'm off metformin, with an A1c of 4.7. My bloodwork is all normal. At 76 I walk at least a mile a day, and when it's not freezing outside, I walk more. I take one shot a week and feel so much better. I even had my varicose veins fixed (ablated) which really helped my walking. It's been a stunning result.

I had asked to try Ozempic the year before because my weight has been super stubborn after my hysterectomy in 2007. That's when I plowed on the weight and got type 2 etc. She did not want me on that because of side-effects she doesn't like. When Mounjaro was out for a bit, she suggested it to me. I had already lost 8 lbs in 7 months by starvng (lol), and she said, "want some help?" The rest is history. I went from an 18W to a size 10-12. I feel so much better.

[BigmanPigman]

17. Stress, COVID, obesity drugs, food costs

are all factors for the weight loss.

I lost a lot this past year and since I have been so upset about the election. Even after I turned politics "off" from July until October I still subconsciously was scared shitless. I dropped down to 84 pounds for the first time since High School. My primary Care doctor understood the source (tRump) and told me so since he is a Dem and we can be open and honest.

[maxsolomon]

22. You weigh 84 pounds?

I hope you aren't very tall!

[BigmanPigman]

24. I'm 5'1 1/2" tall

and I like having less weight on my very small frame. 95 pounds has been my ideal weight but I had to always watch my calories since every pound on a small frame is magnified. This year when I dropped from 95 to 84 in 6 months while not even trying to lose weight I knew why......tRump stress syndrome. I have stopped dropping weight but am still staying at 84.

I guess tRump IS good for one thing...I lost weight without effort.

[Prairie Gates]

29. For no apparent reason at all, the linked BMI calculator is on an erectile dysfunction website

You can use a non-spam BMI calculator here: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

[nmmi]

32. Thanks! /nt

[nmmi]

31. The BMI calculator says both those are underweight

Underweight is anything below 18.5 BMI
The healthy range is 18.5 to 24.9 BMI

For a 5' 1 1/2" person
84 pounds is a BMI of 15.6
95 pounds is a 17.7 BMI

BMI calculator here: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm
(Thanks Prairie Gate for the BMI calculator)

Not that BMI is the last word on the subject of weight and health, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't post this.

===================================================================
I previously gave this BMI calculator which as Prairie Gates noted in #29 below, is a spammy one from an erectile dysfunction website. It gives the same answers for a 5'1" and 5'2: person, but doesn't do 5' 1 1/2"
https://www.hims.com/lp/wl-start-hims-bmi-calculator

And then I tried to edit my reply, but something isn't working when I edit a reply in an LBN thread and tried to look at the entire thread, long story, anyway, I thought I had posted a new LBN OP by mistake, so I quickly self-deleted (that's #24 above). So this is another attempt to get it right.

[Ritabert]

28. We went vegetarian 25 years ago and have stayed thin

We don't eat junk food or drink soda either. No fast food aside from an occasional Panera meal if traveling.