The proportion of Americans with “metabolically healthy obesity” has risen along with the general obesity increase over the past two decades, but the “healthy” numbers remain low, new data suggest.
Figures from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) indicate that “metabolically healthy obesity” — defined as obesity without any associated metabolic disorders, such as hypertension or raised blood glucose — had more than doubled in the overall population from 1999 to 2018, but still remained a small proportion of the overall rising population with obesity.
Moreover, the rise in “metabolically healthy” obesity occurred primarily among people aged 60