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BMI and obesity prevalence declined in the United States in 2023, according to a research letter published in JAMA Health Forum. Benjamin Rader, PhD, MPH, from Boston Children’s Hospital, and colleagues examined national trends in BMI and obesity among US adults from January 2013 through December 2023. The researchers calculated the annual mean population BMI and percentage of adults with obesity. Overall, 16,743,822 unique adults contributed 47,939,382 BMI measurements. The researchers observed an increase in mean population BMI annually from 2013 to 2021 (from 29.65 to 30.23), followed by a plateauing in 2022 (30.24), and a slight decrease in 2023 (30.21). The percent changes in the number of adults with obesity followed the same pattern. Obesity prevalence decreased in the South, among people aged 66 to 75 years, and among women. This finding was held true by a sensitivity analysis using unweighted data.
