Dive Brief:
- The obesity rate for Americans came in at just over 36% for 2011 to 2014, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. That rate has increased almost 8 percentage points since the 1999-2000 CDC report.
- Public health advocates are frustrated by the stubbornness of the country's obesity rate despite consumers' efforts to buy healthier foods and avoid what they consider unhealthy, such as sugary drinks like soda and trans fats.
- Another study found that while chips and sweets have often been targeted as culprits for obesity, researchers say that consumers may be getting too many calories from all foods across the board and should therefore eat everything in moderation.
Dive Insight:
"Everybody was hoping that with the decline in sugar and soda consumption, that we’d start seeing a leveling off of adult obesity," New York University professor Marion Nestle, who teaches nutrition, food studies and public health, told The New York Times.
The rise in obesity rates comes despite Americans changing diets over the past two decades.
"In about that time, American diets have changed considerably. Since the 1990s, Americans are drinking 25 percent less full-calorie soda. And one USDA report showed that Americans were eating 118 calories a day fewer in 2009-2010 than four years before," Fortune reported.
Those dietary changes, including demands for cleaner labels and more natural ingredients, have impacted food companies in a big way, judging by grim earnings performances.
Along with consumers turning away from sugary drinks has come a steady decline of soda sales for the past decade, which has forced Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to look beyond carbonated beverages to level off falling revenues. This is especially true for diet soda.
Cereal is another category that has seen declines as more consumers choose Greek yogurt and other breakfast options instead. Cereal went from $14 billion in yearly sales in 2000 to about $10 billion in 2013.