New study shows more heavy Americans are giving up on their weight-loss attempts.
The American culture has been indulging the fast food concept for too long. Grocery shopping has become more expensive than a fast food menu. This unbalance has distorted the reality of a healthy nutrition. As a consequence, the number of heavy Americans has surged during the last decades. At this point, a study found that fewer people are willing to put in a fight against the surplus of calories.
On Tuesday, a new report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. The research paper extracted its much-needed data from a project conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention entitled National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. According to these readings, heavy Americans grew in number over the last decades. A generation ago, 53% of the population was obese or overweight. In today’s world, 66% of American citizens are dealing with a surplus of pounds.
The study continued to discover how willing people are to shed off the extra weight. In the period between 1988 and 1994, 56% of heavy Americans stated that they tried to lose weight in the last 12 months. By comparison, in the period between 2009 and 2014, this rate declined to 49%. This trend did not affect white adults only, but African American people as well. Black women accounted for a proportion of 55% during the last analyzed period of time of being obese.
Moreover, during the first survey period, 66% of overweight African American women confessed that they had weight-loss attempts. During the second period, the number decreased to 55% which is a larger negative change that the one recorded among white adults.
The team of scientists at the College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University tried to come up with an explanation. According to them, this trend was triggered the moment larger body weight gained the social acceptance. They backed up their suggestions with a 2010 study. According to this research paper that appeared in the journal Obesity, big body sizes have become the new norm. The study focused on an extended period of time between 1998 and 2004. The conclusions pointed out that both men and women described themselves as having normal figures despite their high body mass index.
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