It is well known that obesity is a risk factor for a variety of chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease, cancer, and arthritis and that excessive obesity is related to increased mortality, especially from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Obesity costs the country around $150 billion per year, roughly 10% of its health care budget. Obese people tend to visit the doctor more frequently, have more hospital visits, have more expensive hospital stays, and use more expensive drugs than average-weight ones.

Amid all these concerns about obesity rates and fears about its associated diseases and costs, there is finally some good news: A new study concluded that obesity rates have leveled off for women between 1999 and 2008 and for men between 2003 and 2008. Historically, obesity rates in the US had continuously increased between 1976-1980 and 1988-1994 and again between 1988-1994 and 1999-2000.

The study, published online this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed weight and height measurements and calculated BMI (Body Mass Index, a measure of body fat based on height and weight) for 5,555 adult men and women. Overweight was defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 25.0 to 29.9. Obesity was defined as a BMI of 30.0 or higher.

In 2008, the prevalence of obesity was 32% among men and 35.5% among women. The prevalence of obesity and overweight combined was 72% for men and 64% for women. While these rates are still considered very high, the positive thing is that these rates did not show any increase over the last 10 years for women and over the least 5 years for men.

While rates for women started leveling off as early as 1999, it took men an additional 5 years to achieve the same. The fact that men seem to be lagging a bit behind women in the trend is probably due to the fact that women are in general earlier adopters of healthy behaviors than men.

It is important to note that while this these findings suggest that the problem is not getting worse, it is also not getting better either. Many Americans are starting to take better care of their bodies, exercise more and make better food choices. However, a lot of work still has to be done at the policy and at the individual level in order to reverse the obesity trends and improve our overall health.