Decrease Reported in New Mexico Obesity Rate
New Mexico 1 of only 14 states to report decrease
New data analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed a decrease in the prevalence of self-reported obesity among New Mexico adults in 2013 over the year before. New Mexico is one of only fourteen US states and territories to report a decrease.
The data come from the most recent Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Information (BRFSS) annual survey, a state-based phone survey that collects health information from approximately 400,000 adults aged 18 years and older.
BRFSS collects data in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and three US territories (Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands).
The data showed a 0.7 percentage point decrease in the rate of all adults reporting themselves to be obese in New Mexico last year over the same survey conducted in 2012.
“The new numbers are the latest in a growing body of evidence showing encouraging news about our state’s effort to reduce the number of obese residents,” said Department of Health Cabinet Secretary Retta Ward, MPH. “There is no question we are moving in the right direction, but there’s also no question we have much more work to do.”
New Mexico is one of the few US states consistently showing signs of stabilizing after years of dramatic increase in obesity in the country between the years of 1990 to 2010. Among the decreases:
- Childhood obesity rates among New Mexico 3rd graders declined measurably from 2010 through 2013. The Department of Health announced in March 2014 it found a 12 percent decrease during that time, going from 22.6 percent of obese 3rd graders in 2010 to 19.9 percent in 2013. Obesity rates among American Indian 3rd graders, the group with the highest prevalence, also declined going from 36.6 percent in 2010 to 29.5 percent in 2013, a 20 percent decline.
- A report released in August 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed obesity rates among young children from low income families in New Mexico declined. Our state was among only 19 US states and territories to have a measureable decline in the obesity rates of low-income children between the ages of two to four years old who participate in federally funded maternal and child nutrition programs such as the New Mexico Women, Infants & Children (WIC).
- A report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2013, showed the number of obese adults in New Mexico stabilizing. The number remained unchanged from the year before, making the state one of the few not to report an increase.
Please visit the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Information website for more information.
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Disminución Registrada en la Tasa de Obesidad en Nuevo México