New report finds people are beginning to connect the dots between eating behaviors and personal health
Most Americans continue to be overweight, with a substantial minority being obese (32%) or extremely obese by CDC standards. Yet consumers’ views on being overweight are changing. The latest report from consumer trends experts The Hartman Group, Weight Management & Healthy Living 2015, found there is greater acceptance of being overweight as a society than in the 1950s, when modern dieting culture began. Since most American adults are overweight today (63%), being “heavy” is now the social norm and much less stigmatized than in the past. The new enemy for consumers is obesity, not simply being overweight.
“Over the past ten years, overweight and/or obese Americans have come to accept their weight status as defined by the CDC,” said Laurie Demeritt, CEO of The Hartman Group. “This is a huge shift in self-awareness and in willingness to accept stigmatized terms like ‘obese’ as personal labels. When individuals accept that they have a problem like obesity, it forms the platform for actual behavioral change.”