Americans increasingly obese, hooked on plastic surgery and living by the sea, census shows

[Guest guest]

News sent with love from Health Lover, Ilena Rosenthal

Americans increasingly obese, hooked on plastic surgery and living by the sea, census shows

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/17/us-census-health-obesity-population

Americans appear to be increasingly seduced by the allure of plastic

surgery and life by the beach, and are proving unable to shrug off thehabit of overeating despite a massive health drive against obesity,the latest US census abstract suggests.The 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States shows that the

amount of cosmetic remodelling rose from 8.5m procedures in 2001 to11.7m in 2007.Most of the work was nonsurgical, with Botox injections the mostpopular, totalling 2.8m procedures in 2007. Also popular are

hyaluronan injections, approved by US regulators in 2003, which areused to fill out facial wrinkles.Of the 2.1m surgical procedures in 2007, liposuction (457,000) andbreast enlargement (399,000) topped the table.

Men accounted for about a million of the procedures that year, withBotox and liposuction leading the way.The report provides a treasure trove of information about the USduring a period of considerable demographic and political flux. This

year's edition contains more than 1,400 tables, with data drawn fromthe census bureau and an array of social, political and economicgroups.At a time when the US is experiencing destructive weather patterns and

the prospect of rising sea levels from global warming, many Americanscontinue to migrate with abandon towards the beach.Eight million more people lived along the US coastline in 2007 than in2000. The growth is particularly pronounced in the two regions most

threatened by hurricanes and flooding, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.Florida saw a 13% increase in the number of people living along itscoasts over seven years, rising to 10.6 million, almost 60% of thestate population.

The coastal population of the Gulf of Mexico increased to almost 20million. Despite the devastation caused by Katrina in 2005,Louisiana's number remained remarkably stable at 3.3 million, down byless than 200,000.

Texas also continues to expose itself to the vicissitudes of extremeweather. The number of people living by the sea rose 15% from2000-2007 to 7.9 million.US authorities have spent millions of dollars in recent years trying

to combat obesity. They need to try harder, according to the abstract,whose figures on weight are up to 2006. It shows that a third ofAmericans are clinically obese, with a body mass index of 30 or more.Of particular concern to health professionals will be that 30% of 18-

to 44-year-olds are obese.Part of the cause is revealed in other tables that show that a quarterof the population is physically inactive, having reported doing noexercise in the previous month from the date of the survey.

For the first time the abstract shows the religious composition of theUS. America remains overwhelmingly Christian, with 51% describingthemselves as Baptist and 24% as Catholic.