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Chapter 8

Table of Contents

  1. Chapter 8: Achieving and Maintaining a Healthy Weight
  2. Objectives
  3. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1990, 2000, 2010
  4. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1985
  5. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1986
  6. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1987
  7. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1988
  8. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1989
  9. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1990
  10. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1991
  11. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1992
  12. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1993
  13. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1994
  14. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1995
  15. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1996
  16. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1997
  17. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1998
  18. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 1999
  19. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2000
  20. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2001
  21. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2001
  22. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2003
  23. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2004
  24. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2005
  25. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2006
  26. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2007
  27. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2008
  28. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2009
  29. Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults BRFSS, 2010
  30. Obesity trends slides
  31. Health Risks for Overweight People
  32. Overweight and Obesity
  33. Body Mass Index
  34. Body Mass Index Classifications
  35. BMI and Mortality
  36. Body Fat Distribution
  37. Visceral Fat
  38. Waist Circumference Measure
  39. Body Composition
  40. Body Fatness of a Typical Man and Woman
  41. Measuring Body Composition (1 of 2)
  42. Measuring Body Composition (2 of 2)
  43. Maintaining a Healthy Weight
  44. Energy Expenditure: How We Use Calories
  45. Factors associated with Overweight and Obesity
  46. A Lifestyle Approach to Achieving and Maintaining a Healthy Weight
  47. Physical Activity and Fat Loss
  48. Healthy Eating for Fat Loss
  49. Body Image and Weight
  50. Eating Disorders
  51. Take-home points
  52. Sources

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Obesity trends slides

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Lecture Notes

So what did you see when you looked at all those maps? Clearly our country's becoming more and more obese, but what else did you see? What did you notice?

I'll cover a few points here that you should note. The first is that remember that these graphs are only indicating the changes in obesity, not in people who are overweight, and we'll define the difference between those two, but essentially obesity is a greater level of being overweight. So it's just a higher degree of being overweight, and so this map does not even capture the people in our country who are simply overweight.

You probably also noticed regional differences. So, the South and the Southeast, in particular, seems to change before the other areas of the country. And I want you to think about what some possible reasons or influences on these changes might be. It certainly could have to do with the type of food that is typically eaten in these situations or these locations in the country, maybe the cultural beliefs or practices, but what else can you think of?

Another point to note is that we have an obesity epidemic in this country. Obesity rates have changed very quickly. You looked at time-at how much they've changed since 1985, which seems like a long time ago, but really in the grand picture it's not that long ago. And so we've seen these rapid increases in obesity. And if you click on the obesity epidemic bullet point here, I want you to watch a video that was produced by the CDC. It talks about this epidemic. And in the video they talk about childhood obesity as well, and so the maps that you saw were only for adults in the United States, not for children. But, unfortunately, we're seeing these same problems in children.

As you saw in the video, if you just watched it, about one in six children are now obese, and about one in three young people, which is ages 6 to 19, are at risk of becoming overweight or obese. And because of this we're seeing health problems, like type 2 diabetes, in children that we only used to see in adults. So clearly we have a problem with obesity and overweight trends in this country, and we'll cover some more of these topics as we go through the slides here today.