The prevalence of obesity among U.S. adults slightly dropped last year, but it remained a major health issue, with the rate still higher than in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Published Sept. 24, data from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which involved a 5,929 sample size, showed obesity prevalence among U.S. adults aged 20 and older was 40.3 percent during the 2021–2023 period.
This indicated a slight decline from the 41.9 percent found during the 2017–2020 period, although the change is too small to be deemed statistically significant, especially given the larger sample size of 8,295.
The recent figure remains higher than the 37.7 percent recorded in the 2013–2014 period. The CDC defined obesity as a body mass index (BMI) of greater than or equal to 30….