CDC Reports on Chicago Obesity and Inactivity Rates

A recently released national report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that surveyed inactivity and obesity rates on a county-by-county basis reinforces what doctors have long been saying. The inactive need to be more active.

The survey found that an estimated 25.4 percent of adults in America were extremely inactive in 2008, and spending none of their free time exercising, not even doing tasks like gardening.

Overall, the seven Chicago-area counties were slightly more active than the national average, with DuPage County harboring the lowest percentage of inactive adults, an estimated 18 percent, and Kendall County the highest, at 24 percent. In Cook County, an estimated 23 percent of adults were inactive.

A county-by-county look at the Chicago area found that, based on their body mass indexes (BMI), about 1 in every 3 adults is obese.

The CDC reports that about 1 in 4 adults in Cook County were obese in 2008, up about 4 percentage points from 2004. In other area counties, the obesity rates ranged from about 24 percent in DuPage and Lake to nearly 29 percent in Will.

Obesity can cause Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

In Pilsen, estimates show that 65 percent of 167 of the neighborhood’s adults surveyed in 2009 were overweight or obese. The study, released last year by the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children, mostly surveyed women who were caretakers of children. Most of those children were overweight or obese as well.