The percentage of U.S. adults who are obese continued to trend upward in 2014, reaching 27.7%. This is up more than two percentage points since 2008 and is the highest obesity rate Gallup and Healthways have measured in seven years of tracking it. More Americans who were previously overweight have now moved into the obese category, while the percentage who are at normal weight has remained stable since 2013.
The percentage of Americans who are underweight has remained steady at 2.0%.
These results are based on more than 167,000 interviews conducted in 2014 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Unlike government estimates of obesity, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index uses respondents’ self-reported height and weight to calculate body mass index (BMI). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and government estimates of obesity are slightly different, as they are calculated using clinical measurements of height and weight as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The latest NHANES results from 2011-2012 reported a 34.9% obesity rate for adults aged 20 or older, not significantly different from data collected since 2003. Another self-reported government survey, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, says the obesity rate for U.S. adults aged 18 and older was 29.4% in 2013.