{"title":"Prevalence of Clinical Obesity in US Adults, 2017-2020.","authors":"Yun Shen, Gang Hu","doi":"10.1002/oby.24352","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>We aimed to estimate the prevalence of clinical obesity among US adults using the newly proposed definition and evaluate differences across demographic subgroups.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This cross-sectional study analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017-2020 cycle. The analysis included 8037 adults aged 20 years or older with complete data. Clinical obesity was defined per the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission on the definition and diagnosis of clinical obesity.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Among 8037 participants, the overall prevalence of clinical obesity was 9.7% (95% CI, 8.9%-10.5%), with comparable prevalence in males (9.8%) and in females (9.6%). Younger adults (aged 20-39 years) exhibited the highest prevalence (11.9%), followed by those aged 40-59 years (8.2%). Significant racial/ethnic and sex disparities were observed, with Mexican females having the highest prevalence (13.9%), followed by non-Hispanic Black females (13.5%) and non-Hispanic White males (10.6%). The prevalence decreased significantly when the new definition with organ dysfunctions or limitations of daily activities was applied compared with BMI alone.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study provided the first nationally representative estimates of clinical obesity prevalence in US adults based on the new definition.</p>","PeriodicalId":94163,"journal":{"name":"Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.)","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.24352","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: We aimed to estimate the prevalence of clinical obesity among US adults using the newly proposed definition and evaluate differences across demographic subgroups.
Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017-2020 cycle. The analysis included 8037 adults aged 20 years or older with complete data. Clinical obesity was defined per the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission on the definition and diagnosis of clinical obesity.
Results: Among 8037 participants, the overall prevalence of clinical obesity was 9.7% (95% CI, 8.9%-10.5%), with comparable prevalence in males (9.8%) and in females (9.6%). Younger adults (aged 20-39 years) exhibited the highest prevalence (11.9%), followed by those aged 40-59 years (8.2%). Significant racial/ethnic and sex disparities were observed, with Mexican females having the highest prevalence (13.9%), followed by non-Hispanic Black females (13.5%) and non-Hispanic White males (10.6%). The prevalence decreased significantly when the new definition with organ dysfunctions or limitations of daily activities was applied compared with BMI alone.
Conclusions: This study provided the first nationally representative estimates of clinical obesity prevalence in US adults based on the new definition.