U.S. obesity levels may be leveling

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ATLANTA, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Adult obesity increased from 1980 to 1999, but the number of those more than 30 pounds overweight may have leveled off in 2009-2010, U.S. researchers say.

Katherine M. Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, used data from the 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and compared adult obesity and the distribution of body mass index with data from 1999 to 2008.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found the percentage of obese men increased to 35.5 percent in 2010 from 27.5 percent in 2000, while 35.8 percent of women were obese in 2010 -- about the same as 2000.

Almost 17 percent of U.S. children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 were obese in 2010, up from almost 14 percent from 2000, the study said.

The levels of U.S. obesity increased significantly for men and for non-Hispanic black and Mexican American women during the 12-year period from 1999 through 2010, but did not change between 2003 to 2008, and between 2009 and 2010 for men or women.