Getting Heavier, Younger

: This light blue line shows the burden of obesity for the 1926 cohort.

: You can see that while ~13% of individuals were obese at 30-39 years…

: …by the time they reached 70-79 years of age, 31% were obese.

: This dark green line shows the burden of obesity for the 1936 cohort.

: This blue line shows the burden of obesity for the 1946 cohort.

: This orange line shows the burden of obesity for the 1956 cohort.

: This pink line shows the burden of obesity for the 1966 cohort.

: This purple line shows the burden of obesity for the 1976 cohort.

: This red line shows the burden of obesity for the 1986 cohort.

: Finally, the black triangle shows the burden of obesity for the 1996 cohort. You can see that for younger birth cohorts, the lines are moving up and over to the left.

: The lines moving up mean that younger birth cohorts are obese in greater numbers for a given age.

: For example, by 30-39 years of age, almost 30% of individuals in the 1966 cohort were obese.

: In comparison by 30-39 years of age, only 13% of individuals in the 1926 cohort were obese.

: The lines moving to the left means that younger generations of US individuals are now experiencing a longer duration of obesity over their lifetime.

: For example, the burden of obesity in the 1926 cohort exceeded 20% by the time they were 50-59 years of age.

: This level of obesity (>20%) was reached a decade earlier at 40-49 years of age for the 1936 birth cohort.

: This level of obesity (>20%) was reached a decade earlier at 30-39 years of age for the 1946 birth cohort.

: Finally, this level of obesity (>20%) was reached a decade earlier at 20-29 years of age for the 1976 and 1966 birth cohorts.

: This slide shows birth cohort trends in obesity for US male individuals.

: This slide shows birth cohort trends in obesity for US female individuals.

: This slide shows birth cohort trends in obesity for US white individuals.

: This slide shows birth cohort trends in obesity for US black individuals.

This slideshow is based on the paper published by Lee and colleagues in the International Journal of Obesity. (Lee JM, Pilli S, Gebremariam A, Keirns CC, Davis MM, Vijan S, Freed GL, Herman WH, Gurney JG. Getting heavier, younger: trajectories of obesity over the life course. Int J Obes (Lond)). The slideshow demonstrates the dramatic shift in patterns of obesity prevalence over the life course that have occurred related to increases in obesity among younger individuals in the population. Younger cohorts of Americans are reaching a higher prevalence of obesity earlier in the life course, which will likely have profound implications for future rates of obesity-related chronic diseases and mortality within the US population. On the slides, the y axis represents the percentage of obese individuals and the x axis represents age in years. The lines demonstrate how the burden of obesity is increasing among successive birth cohorts as they grow older.

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