http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/diet-nutrition/story/2011/03/Steady-obesity-epidemic-plagues-Canada-US/44359180/1?csp=34newsObesity is far worse in the U.S. than it is in Canada, but obesity rates in both countries have been increasing steadily over the past 20 years, a new report shows.
About 24% of people in Canada are obese, compared with 34.4% of citizens here.
People who are obese, roughly 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight, are at a higher risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and other diseases.
In Canada, 24.3% of men and 23.9% of women are obese vs. 32.6% of men and 36.2% of women in the U.S.
Over the past two decades, the prevalence of obesity increased significantly in both the U.S., and Canada, but it's still about 10 percentage points higher here, says Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NCHS released this report Wednesday.
Between the late 1980s and 2008, the prevalence of obesity increased by about 10 percentage points for Canadian men, and by 8 percentage points for women. In the U.S., obesity rose in men by 12 percentage points; for women, 10 percentage points.
The Canadian statistics come from Canadian Health Measures Survey. The U.S. data are from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, considered the most definitive assessment of Americans' weight because of the length and size of the study and because people's height and weight are actually measured. The Canadian survey is similar to the one in the U.S.
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