Women are increasingly at risk of becoming severely obese according to the Centers for Disease and Control. WCCO Radio's Susie Jones spoke with a doctor at Hennepin Health Care about the disturbing news.
"It's unfortunate that obesity is so high," says Dr. Allie Estrada who works with patients at Hennepin Health's Comprehensive Weight Management Center.
Estrada sees firsthand what's become a epidemic, with more women becoming severely obese.
"I do think that there are a lot of misconceptions about obesity and that people tend to think that it's just a factor of caloric intake and then, you know, energy expenditure," Estrada says.
She says there are so many things that affect obesity, and it needs malmanagement beyond just a lifestyle change including recent and popular weight loss medications.
"Luckily, insurance coverage does seem to be improving over time, but it's still, you know, insufficient to cover the most vulnerable populations," says Estrada. "And the medications are just exorbitantly expensive. So until we can figure that out, their use won't be as widespread as it probably should be."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that women were nearly twice as men to become severely obese.
Estrada says the reason is complicated but likely to include hormonal differences.
"But I suspect at least a part of the reason is that the average woman requires less caloric intake to maintain her weight compared to the average man," she explains. "And it's just really hard to stick to lower caloric intake in our current food ecosystem and culture."
The CDC reports the U.S. obesity rate is about 40%, according to a 2021-2023 survey of about 6,000 people. The overall obesity rate appeared to tick down vs. the 2017-2020 survey, but the change wasn’t considered statistically significant; the numbers are small enough that there’s mathematical chance they didn’t truly decline.
That means it’s too soon to know whether new treatments for obesity, including blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, can help ease the epidemic of the chronic disease linked to a host of health problems, according to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer who led the latest study.
“We simply can’t see down to that detailed level to prescription medication use and compare that to changes in obesity prevalence,” Emmerich said. “Hopefully that is something we can see in the future.”
The new report follows the release earlier this month of data from U.S. states and territories that showed that in 2023, the rate of obesity ranged widely by place, from a high of more than 41% of adults in West Virginia to a low of less than 24% of adults in Washington, D.C. Rates were highest in the Midwest and the South.
All U.S. states and territories posted obesity rates higher than 20%. In 23 states, more than 1 in 3 adults had obesity, the data showed. Before 2013, no state had a rate that high, said Dr. Alyson Goodman, who leads a CDC team focused on population health.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.