US obesity rates are leveling out, but long term effects raise concern

The prevalence of obesity in US adults seems to be leveling out after three decades of big rises, a new report concludes. From 2012 to 2013 the prevalence remained level in all states except Arkansas, which saw its obesity rate climb from 30.9% in 2011 to 34.5% in 2013.

But another study estimates that deaths related to obesity might be much higher than previously thought.

The first report, F as in Fat, is the latest in an annual series produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health as a means to track the US obesity epidemic.1 It shows that adult obesity rates in the US have more than doubled over the past 30 years, rising …