Nearly one in three Georgia adults is obese, a rate that ranks the state 19th in the nation, a new report has found.
Georgia’s 30.5 percent obesity rate in 2014 means the state has not seen much change in this category over the past couple of years, said the report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, released this week.
Most of Georgia’s Southern counterparts had higher adult obesity rates, and four of the top five states are in the South: Arkansas (with the highest rate in the U.S., at 35.9 percent), Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.
Georgia’s adult obesity rate has risen from 20.6 percent in 2000 and from 10.1 percent in 1990, mirroring a national trend, said the report. The state’s rate in 2013 was 30.3 percent.
“While we recognize there is significant work to be done in Georgia to reduce the adult obesity rate, the fact the state remained statistically flat from year to year is a positive,” Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, said in a statement.
“We are seeing significant improvements in our youngest Georgians,’’ she added, citing the state’s SHAPE program to reduce childhood obesity and its Power Up for 30 initiative, which encourages schools to give children 30 additional minutes of physical activity daily.
Obesity puts some 78 million Americans at an increased risk of various health problems, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer, the report said.
Georgia has an adult diabetes rate of 11.6 percent, ranking 10th in the nation, and a hypertension rate of 35 percent, ranking 12th, the report added.
“Efforts to prevent and reduce obesity over the past decade have made a difference,” said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health in a statement. “Stabilizing rates is an accomplishment. However, given the continued high rates, it isn’t time to celebrate. We’ve learned that if we invest in effective programs, we can see signs of progress. But, we still haven’t invested enough to really tip the scales yet.”
More attention and funding have gone to preventing obesity over the past decade, said Rodney Lyn, an obesity expert and an associate dean in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. These programs include serving healthier food in schools, and communities developing more parks and greenspace, he added. Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has been reduced, Lyn said.
“There are signs of progress among children,’’ including declines in obesity rates among 2- to 5-year-olds, Lyn said Tuesday. “We have a long way to go.”
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