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More Than Two-Thirds of Americans Overweight

CBN

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Most Americans are too fat. A new study shows three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women are now obese or overweight.

That is an increase of more than 10 percent since the 1990s.

"Obesity is not getting better. It's getting worse, and it's really scary. It's not looking pretty," Lin Yang, a post-doctoral research associate at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, told HealthDay News.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine studied information on more than 15,000 men and women ages 25 and older between 2007 and 2012.

From that survey, they estimate 67.6 million Americans were obese in 2012 and 65.2 million were overweight.

Yang said obesity has been linked to diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, and arthritis.

"This generation of Americans is the first that will have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation, and obesity is one of the biggest contributors to this shortened life expectancy because it is driving a lot of chronic health conditions," she said.

Blaming poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle for the obesity epidemic, Yang suggests communities put plans in place that would make it easier to travel on foot or by bike instead of by car.

"America is a very much car-dependent country. We know car driving is a chunk of sedentary behavior," she said. "More walking or bicycling would increase the physical activity of the whole nation."

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