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While U.S. obesity rates appear to have leveled off, Hispanics and Blacks have strikingly higher obesity rates than their White and Asian peers, Bloomberg reports.
The good news is that overall adult obesity is not rising.
About one-third of American adults (about 78 million people) are obese, about the same number as across the last decade, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report was led by researcher Dr. Cynthia L. Ogden.
But racial/ethnic disparities in obesity rates continue to be alarming.
About 43 percent of Hispanics and 48 percent of blacks are obese, compared with 33 percent of whites and 11 percent of Asians, Bloomberg reports.
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director the Salud America! Latino childhood obesity research network at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, said more educational and research efforts are needed to reduce obesity among Latinos, especially because of high obesity rates among Latino kids.
“We need to work to make the healthy choice the easy choice, and generate a culture of health for Latinos and the nation,” Ramirez said. “We can’t let this be the first generation of children that might outlive their parents.”
By The Numbers
25.1
percent
of Latinos remain without health insurance coverage
