Obesity Continues to Surge in U-S

  by Dawn Heefner, Action News HealthCheck Producer

April 10, 2007 (WPVI) -- Another setback in America's obesity battle. People who are severely obese - 100 pounds or more overweight - are the fastest growing group of overweight people in America - up a startling 50 per cent in 5 years.

"The proportion of people at the high end of the weight scale continues to increase at a brisk rate despite increased public attention on the risks of obesity and the increased use of drastic weight loss strategies such as bariatric surgery," said Roland Sturm, an economist at Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research institute.

"The explosion in the use of bariatric (weight-loss) surgery has made no noticeable dent in the trend of morbid obesity," Sturm added in a statement.

The researchers found that based on self-reported height and weight, which tends to underestimate the weight part, 3 percent of Americans are already severely obese - defined as having a body mass index of 40 or higher.

Body mass index is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by the square of a person's height in meters.

People who are slightly, and moderately overweight are also on the rise too.

Obesity raises the change of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and some types of cancer.

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