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From the Journals

CDC Reports Increase in Child and Severe Adult Obesity

From 2013 to 2023, severe obesity increased annually by 0.23 percentage points, according to new NHANES data.

Conexiant

Newly published data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicated increasing rates of obesity and severe obesity in the U.S., particularly among children and middle-aged adults.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) study analyzed data from 41,449 participants across multiple survey cycles from 2013 to 2023 against the Healthy People 2030 goal of 15.5% obesity prevalence in children and adolescents and 36% in adults. Data collection was paused in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but resumed in August 2021 with modified sampling methods. The researchers noted that while response rates declined from 68.5% in the 2013 to 2014 cycle to 25.6% in the 2021 to 2023 cycle, statistical weighting accounted for potential bias.

In the study, published in JAMA Network, the researchers found that childhood obesity rates rose annually between 2021 and 2023 by 0.44 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.10-0.78; P = .01) and reached 21.1%. The increase was most pronounced among boys and children aged 2 to 5 years. Severe obesity among children remained stable at 7% (95% CI = 5.8%-8.4%).

Among adults, overall obesity prevalence remained statistically unchanged at 40.3% (95% CI = 36.3%-44.3%) in 2021 to 2023. However, severe obesity (defined as a BMI of at least 40) increased annually by 0.23 percentage points (95% CI = 0.03-0.43; P = .03) and reached 9.4% (95% CI = 8.1%-10.9%). The largest increases occurred in women and adults aged 40 to 59 years.

"From 2013-2014 to August 2021-August 2023, there were small increases in the percentage of children and adolescents with obesity, as well as in adults with severe obesity (but not [nonsevere] obesity)," wrote Samuel D. Emmerich, DVM, of the National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Hyattsville, Maryland, with colleagues.

High waist circumference (more than 102 cm in men and more than 88 cm in women), a marker of central adiposity, remained stable at 57.6% (95% CI = 53.9%-61.2%) in the 2021 to 2023 cycle.

Limitations included declining response rates and usefulness of BMI measurements (i.e., BMI cannot directly measure body fat or distribution, but it can be used to monitor obesity trends at the population level).

No conflicts of interest were disclosed in the study.