Most Americans Do Not Think They Are Fat!

A recent study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle found that two-thirds of Americans (an estimated 160 million people) are overweight or obese. Meanwhile, another recent Gallup poll also found that 35.3 percent of Americans were overweight and 27.7 percent were obese.

Obesity is a global health issues facing many countries because of the modern lifestyle: unhealthy diet and lack of physical activities. When a person is overweight or obese, the risk of developing certain chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and even cancer is getting higher.

Health authorities and governments around the world including United States are of course working really hard to curb the obesity epidemic. Yet most Americans do not think that they are fat. According to a new Gallup poll, more than half of Americans adults said they do not think they are overweight and are not making an effort to reduce weight.

Although men are more likely to be overweight than women, 60 percent of men reported that they were not overweight and they were not trying to lose weight, compared with 50 percent of women who said the same.

Only about 36 percent of those surveyed described themselves as overweight. Among those people, 18 percent said they were trying to lose weight and another 18 percent said they were not. 

21 percent of women said they were overweight and trying to lose weight, compared with 15 percent of men who said the same. Meanwhile, 10 percent of women said they were trying to lose weight even though they did not consider themselves overweight, comparing to 6 percent of men who said the same. 

Younger adults tended to be more content with their weights. Among those ages 18 to 34, Gallup found that 68 percent reported that they were neither overweight nor trying to lose weight, compared with 47 percent of adults 55 and older who said the same.

The new survey was done via phone interviews with a random sample of 3,066 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 States and the District of Columbia, as part of Gallup's Health and Healthcare surveys from 2011 through 2013.

Obviously, the surveyed results highlighted that importance of perception. In the midst of addressing the obesity crisis in America, it is paramount for the authorities to start first by convincing the overweight Americans that they are indeed overweight before persuading them to lose weight.