Nearly half of adults in the United States are projected to be obese by 2030 with one in four likely to be clinically defined as morbidly obese, carrying around 100 pounds more than the normal body weight.
According to County Health Rankings, Texas has an obesity rate amongst adults of 34%, meaning one in three Texans has a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30.0 or higher. Texas falls just slightly behind the United States as a whole which has a 36.2% obesity rate amongst all adults.
While the United States ranks 12th in the world in terms of the percentage of obese adults across the entire population, the countries that rank higher are incredibly small with a total population across them all of less than five million people. For perspective, Texas alone has nearly 30 million residents and the United States has a population of just under 330 million.
According to a recent study by WalletHub, Texas has six of the most obese metros in the nation, including the number one metro, McAllen-Edinburg-Mission. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro ranked as the 27th most obese metro, between San Antonio-New Braunfels at 25th and El Paso at 30th.
The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro is in Hidalgo County along the U.S. and Mexican border, where obesity has increased in the last few years. Hidalgo currently has an obesity percentage of 48%, nearly 20 points higher than 10 years ago.
In an interview on this undesirable distinction, McAllen Mayor Pro Tem Veronica Whitacre told Border Report, “It’s crazy. Every person in the City of McAllen has access to parks and recreation. And it’s not just on one part of town. It’s north, south, east and west.”
For perspective, McAllen, Texas has 2.4 times as many obese adults as the leanest metro in the United States of Asheville, North Carolina. Additionally, McAllen has 2.7 times the amount of physically inactive adults as the most active being in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Other border counties are also struggling with exploding obesity rates. As The Dallas Express reported previously, obesity rates in Hudspeth, Willacy, Zavala, Starr, and Presidio counties grew by 16% or more since 2012.
Medical professionals are beginning to see the effects of Texas’ increasing obesity rates. One example is the skyrocketing number of liver cancer cases in the state, which is caused by several factors, but among them is fatty liver. Fatty liver is a direct result of obesity and diabetes.
According to UT Southwestern, Texas’ liver cancer incidence rate is 10.5 new cases per 100,000 people while the national rate is just 7.2. Making the situation more dire, medical experts anticipate liver cancer could become the third most deadly cancer in the country by 2035.