Fast rise on obesity rates in all income levels as reported by NCHS
Based on two reports from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, there has been an increase in the number of obesity cases among young and older Americans in all social strata. The report was released on Tuesday by the NCHS, a part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention. They both looked at adults and children and compared the rates of obesity using. They used national data from 1988 up to 1994 and from 2005 to 2008 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
It has been said that the frequency of obesity has shown a significant increase among adults regardless of the income and education levels. According to the authors of the report, there was generally the same trend held for American children. The authors added that by 2008, there were already around one third obese American adults and 17 percent of children and adolescents from 2 to 19 years old were obese as well.
Income-level wise, there were some discrepancies. It has been shown that among adult males, the rate of obesity was the same across income levels. The rates in black and Hispanic men, however, show an increase along with the income. Women who have higher income were reportedly less likely to be obese as compared to women who had lower income.
A low family income was connected to a higher rate of obesity among children. However, the connection was not consistent in all racial and ethnic groups. According to the team of NCHS, “most obese children and adolescents are not low income.” This was defined as 130 percent under the poverty line.
Basing on education, the researchers were not able to find any significant trend that can link obesity for men to education. On the other hand, women with college degrees showed a lower tendency to become obese as compared to those without higher education.
Lastly, children who were taken care of at home where the head of the household is a degree holder were less likely to become obese. This was in opposition to the case of children raised in homes by a head person who have not attained college level. This relationship, however, did not show any consistency across groups of ethnicity and race, according to the report of NCHS.