75% of American Adults Overweight

Maybe not yet, but studies are predicting that this will be the case by 2015. According to Dr. Youfa Yang, who led a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University,

Obesity is a public health crisis. If the rate of obesity and overweight continues at this pace, by 2015, 75 per cent of adults and nearly 24 per cent of US children and adolescents will be overweight or obese.

The research also predicted that “obesity [will] soon become the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.”

The study defined “overweight” and “obese” using the medical definition the Body Mass Index (BMI) which is found by dividing a person’s weight in kilos by their height in metres squared.

Under the classification, those with a BMI of 25 or above are considered “overweight” while those with BMIs of 30 or above are “obese” and considered to be at serious risk of heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancers.

The latest figures show that two thirds of adults and 16 per cent of children and adolescents in the US are currently overweight.

This problem is most acute in the US, which is “the most overweight country in the world.”

The soaring levels of obesity have been attributed to a poor diet of junk food and fizzy drinks as well as lack of exercise.

I remember the first time I traveled to Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia for mission work. One thing I noticed was how infrequently I would see an overweight person. I went for four consecutive summers, and noticed that overweight people were slowly becoming less scarce—probably due to the increasing number of American fast food restaurants.

Read the whole article at the Telegraph.

My guess is that these numbers are not dramatically different with reference to Christians. Is this a problem? If so, how is the church to respond?

1. Pastors have a reputation, similar to police officers, of being overweight. What needs to change? Should lack of discipline in eating and physical fitness keep one from being in ministry? Should it remove him from ministry? I’ve heard of pastors willfully leaving ministry because of their problems with obesity. What do you do personally, if anything, to stay physically fit?
2. Do you see this as a growing (no pun intended) problem in your church? If so, are you addressing it? How? An occasional point of application? A whole sermon? A series? Has it been well-received?

Case in point: At 560 kg, Mexican man weighs into record books.

Like this post? Subscribe to our feed .