Food System Factoids: The Growth of Obesity Across the Country

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The Growth of Obesity Across the Country

We have been hearing that obesity is an epidemic across the nation. But what does an epidemic really look like?

The Center for Disease Control's web page Overweight and Obesity: Obesity Trends: U.S. Obesity Trends 1985–2005 includes a powerful powerpoint presentation (or pdf) that illustrates the growth of Body Mass Index (BMI) across time.

For a quick snapshot, here are a couple of images that show what an epidemic looks like. Notice how in the year 2000 they added a new higher category, and in 2005 they added two more.

Source: "Overweight and Obesity: Obesity Trends: U.S. Obesity Trends 1985–2005", U.S. Dept of Health and uman Services, Center for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm; viewed March 10, 2007

2 comments:

Noumenon said...: Didn't they change the definition of overweight and obese in 2000? Ever since I heard that I stopped believing in the obesity epidemic.; March 26, 2007 at 11:22 PM
Tim Crosby said...: If they did I will trust that the CDC took this in to account for these stats.

Thanks,

Tim; March 27, 2007 at 7:00 AM

Post a Comment

I am Tim Crosby and I work on the logistics, policy, and financing of regional food systems, especially in Washington State.

This is my blog containing factoids from my research of why we eat what we eat and what we can do to improve our nutrition, health, communities, economies, national security, and global climate situations by supporting access to healthy foods (food justice) as well as supporting regional food production for regional consumption.

Please post your own facts as comments. My main motivation for doing this is to try to aggregate a variety of research and evidence in to one web space.

Thanks,

Tim

email: timcrosby "at" comcast.net
(@ spelled to block some spam)