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Supersize US: UNCG Professor Predicts Extreme Obesity to Reach Dramatic Levels by 2020
GREENSBORO – It’s not your imagination. You are gaining weight. According to a new study by Dr. Christopher J. Ruhm, a health and labor economist at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, more than 75 percent of all Americans are expected to be overweight and almost half to be obese by 2020.
And that’s not even the bad news. Rates of “severe” obesity, those people weighing 60 percent or more over their ideal body weight― for example, 100 pounds for someone 5’9”― are predicted to double between 2000 and 2020. The proportion of people weighing 80 percent or more above their ideal body weight is forecasted to rise from 2.1 percent to 4.4 percent.
“The average American adult has added 9 to 12 pounds during the 1990s,” said Ruhm. “There are huge potential costs associated with escalating obesity rates such as higher rates of diabetes and hypertension. But the biggest cost may be that Americans could see declining life expectancy due to increasing obesity.”
Ruhm’s study, which was published in The Forum for Health Economics and Policy, used body mass index (BMI) as the criterion for defining whether or not a person was overweight. BMI is a measure of body weight relative to height.
A BMI of 18-25 is considered a normal range for adults. A person with a BMI of more than 30 is considered obese, while those with a BMI of 40 or more are considered severely obese.
In examining data for adults ages 20-70 from a series of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys that began in the early 1960s, Ruhm found that cases of severe obesity today are nearly as prevalent as cases of milder obesity were in the 1970s and 1980s. He also noted that Americans with BMIs of 40 or higher accounted for the fastest growth in weight.
Ruhm expects that rates of all obesity, especially those of extreme obesity, will continue to climb unless drastic measures are undertaken. He attributes skyrocketing obesity rates to the ready availability of cheap, calorie-laden foods along with Americans’ increasingly sedentary lifestyles.
Ruhm is the Jefferson-Pilot Excellence Professor of Economics at UNCG. He served as a senior staff economist with the Council on Economic Advisers at the While House from 1996-97.
Ruhm’s landmark paper “Are Recessions Good for Your Health?” found that mortality rates increased during times of economic prosperity casting doubt on the commonly-held belief that economic downturns have negatives effects on physical health. Ruhm received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. ###