Closer Look
BMI is starting to plateau — in richer countries
Adobe, Alex Hogan/STAT
So there's modest good news about obesity. In high-income countries, rates are still rising, but they're not increasing as fast as they did on their way to 42% of the adult U.S. population. It's even beginning to level off, STAT contributor Julia Belluz reports. To understand how we got here, she looks back at what happened to make obesity rates triple since 1976. Ultra-processed foods get much of the blame, as does a more sedentary lifestyle. And while food is more available, we're not cooking at home as much as we used to.
What's behind the slowdown in BMI growth in wealthier countries? Messages about obesity prevention may be getting through, Boyd Swinburn of the University of Auckland thinks. "Some countries are showing reductions amongst preschool children, especially from well-off households," he said. "So they're going to be the first group that come out of this epidemic and start to show decreases in prevalence." Read more.
obesity
Health equity leaders push for access to anti-obesity medications
As obesity rates still climb among Americans and more of them seek new weight-loss drugs, a new report cites deep disparities in who has obesity and who has access to comprehensive care for it, calling it an "access chasm." The Health Equity Coalition for Chronic Disease notes that Black adults have the highest prevalence of obesity (49.9%) compared with other racial groups, followed by Hispanic adults (45.6%), white adults (41.4%), and Asian adults (16.1%). Factors such as lack of access to healthy food or safe physical activity, both determined by lower income, put disadvantaged groups at higher risk.
The coalition, whose members include the NAACP and the National Hispanic Medical Association, call on CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to expand Medicare coverage to anti-obesity medications and to improve access to intensive nutrition and behavioral counseling, as well as bariatric surgery. "The need for health equity is urgent," the group asserts.
mental health
For Chicago girls with PTSD, a high school counseling program helped
When researchers set out to test whether a high school-based counseling program could help young women in Chicago with PTSD, they had more eligible, interested applicants than their study, now out in Science Advances, needed. Their initial surveys found that although PTSD in girls often flies under the radar, 37% of the primarily Black or Hispanic 10th- and 11th-graders showed signs of PTSD, twice the prevalence of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The girls had experienced at least two traumatic events, including witnessing an attack (29%) and losing someone suddenly or violently (45%).
The trial, conducted from 2017 to 2019, randomly assigned 3,749 students to participate in a group counseling and mentorship program or receive usual services weekly for four months. For program participants, PTSD symptom severity scores dropped 22% and moderate trauma-related distress fell 38%. Anxiety (9.77%) and depression (14.1%) also declined. The authors urge more help for this understudied population.
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