Is this another sign of America’s decadence and decline? From Medical News Today:

Americans Getting Heavier And Heavier

Obesity, already at record levels in the USA, is set to be the norm for 41% of adults within the next eight years – three-quarters of Americans will be overweight by 2015, according to a new study carried out by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They also predict that by 2015 almost 24% of children and adolescents in the USA will be obese/overweight.

The researchers found that obesity/overweight rates in America have been steadily increasing at a median rate of 0.2% to 0.8% annually over the past three decades across a wide spectrum of society. In the 1960s 13% of adults in the USA were obese, by 2004 that figure had reached 32%.

Obesity rates seem to have increased at a faster rate among minority and low socioeconomic groups. [full text]