Obesity And The United States - 2030 Words

Compared to other countries, the United States was reported to have the second highest rate of obesity in the world after Mexico. Over the past decade, cases of obesity have triplicated in the U.S., affecting more than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of the adults (Ogden et al. 2014). Given the current trends, it is projected that 42% of the U.S. population will be obese by 2030 (Finkelstein et al. 2012). Aside from its nefarious impact on the overall quality of life of the affected individual on a micro level, obesity has an enormous economist cost on the US healthcare system. In their extensive annual medical spending report, Finkelstein et al. (2012) indicated that the annual medical cost for obesity in the US amount to $147 billion†¦show more content†¦According to the most recent data, two states have adult obesity rates above 35 percent, 20 states have rates at or above 30 percent, 43 states have rates at or above 25 percent and every state is above 20 percent. (Stat e of Obesity 2013). Studies (Arcaya et al. 2013; Burdette and Whitaker 2004) have identified various factors that play a role in the state of this current conjuncture. Findings on the subject are not uniformed however. Papas et al. (2007) have identified twenty studies in their systematic literature review that investigate the effect of environment’s structure on the rate of obesity. While 17 of those studies show a significant relationship between those two variables, three of them found no relationship. At a county-level, only two studies (Holzer, Canavan and Bradley 2014; Slack, Myers, Martin et al. 2014) have investigated the geographical variability in the rate of obesity. They discovered that higher obesity rates were linked with counties with lower number of dentists per capita, higher percentages of African Americans, higher rates of unemployment, lower rates of educational attainment and fewer adults who engaged in regular physical activity. The results of these two studies provided up t o date evidence on a national scale. In the end, the situation remains, the same: the dynamic between local level factors associated with this public health