Flaming Peak, Tibet

Have Overweight and Obesity Peaked at 75% of the Population?

Yesterday, another report came out to suggest that the prevalence of obesity and overweight may have peaked in the American population – at a combined prevalence of 75%. This particular report comes from Epic Research, based on electronic health records for more than 100 million patients.

Every time one of these reports emerges, headlines are all about falling obesity rates. We don’t buy it. It is premature to be crowing about a downward trend in obesity rates. It’s even more of a stretch to say that this is an “Ozempic effect.”

Prevalence of BMI Over 25But it is not at all surprising that the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity might have peaked at 75% of the U.S. population.

Apparent for Years

This is something we have seen coming for roughly seven years. Back in 2018, NHANES data was suggesting the U.S. population might be reaching a limit to the numbers of people susceptible to weight gain. Some people are biologically resistant to weight gain.

At the time, we wrote about a coming plateau in prevalence of overweight and obesity:

“It may be that we are seeing the early stages of a plateau. Perhaps we are seeing that a quarter of the population is resistant to the same factors causing the rest of us to gain more and more weight over time. We can learn from these trends if we pay close attention.”

We wrote again in 2020 that the U.S. might be maxing out on obesity and overweight. We noted that the speculation about everyone gaining weight in 2020 due to the pandemic was likely false.

But we were not the first to see this plateau coming. Diana Thomas and colleagues forecasted it more than a decade ago:

“The US prevalence of obesity is stabilizing and will plateau, independent of current preventive strategies. This trend has important implications in accurately evaluating the impact of various anti‐obesity strategies aimed at reducing obesity prevalence.”

The foresight of Thomas et al is what we call prescience.

Click here for a summary of the new report from Epic research and here for the full report. For further perspective, click here.

Flaming Peak, Tibet, painting by Nicholas Roerich / WikiArt

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February 5, 2025

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