Obesity to rise by 19 million and affect 126 million American adults by 2035, new study finds

The number of Americans living with obesity is expected to rise by 19 million and affect nearly 126 million people by 2035, according to a new study.

The number of Americans living with obesity is expected to rise by 19 million and affect nearly 126 million people by 2035, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Wednesday.

Researchers found that the number of American adults living with obesity has more than doubled over the past 30 years, increasing from 34.7 million in 1990 to an estimated 107 million American adults in 2022. New findings suggest that this upward trend is expected to continue.

“Our projections indicate that almost half of US adults will be living with obesity by 2035,” Dr. Catherine O. Johnson, lead research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and co-author of the study, told ABC News.

In the study, researchers reviewed the body mass index of over 11 million Americans across all states. They then broke down the numbers by state, age, sex, and race.

The findings showed that women were more affected than men overall and that Southern states had a higher number of people living with obesity.