Obesity is a non stop problem in the United States, and recent studies show that if nothing changes from now until 20 years from now, about 50 percent of American men and women could be obese, adding another 65 million obese people to the population.
This study was released from an article on a four-part obesity series in the journal titled Lancet that used past trends to predict what the future may look like for people in the United States and the United Kingdom if they keep gaining weight like they do now.
Together with bigger clothes will come more diseases, leading to higher healthcare prices. The study used both height and weight measures over 20 years to calculate body mass index and with this, make hypotheses. According to the study, in the U.S., obesity prevalence could go from about 32% in 2007 to 2008 to about 50% for men and from 35% to about 45% to 52% for women. In the U.K., rates could go from 26% for men to 41% to 48%, and from 26% to 35% to 43% for women.
If this does not mean much to you, think of it this way: these higher percentages may lead to more than 8 million diabetes cases, 400,000 cancer cases, and 5 million cases of coronary heart disease.