Final answer:
About 33 percent of the U.S. adult population are classified as overweight. BMI, a measure of weight relative to height, categorizes individuals with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 as overweight. The rise in overweight and obesity in the U.S. population has been significant over the past decades.
Step-by-step explanation:
Approximately 33 percent of the U.S. adult population are classified as overweight, with a BMI between 25 and 29.9.
The body mass index (BMI) is a scale used to categorize weight relative to height. An adult with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight. In the 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it was shown that almost 36 percent of adults over 20 years old were obese and an additional 33 percent were overweight, which suggests that more than two-thirds of the adult population exceeded the normal weight range. Obesity and overweight are major health concerns linked to various diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.
However, the utility of BMI as a measure for individuals is somewhat controversial as it does not account for muscle mass and distracts from other factors such as fitness levels. Nonetheless, for population studies, BMI is a useful measure for assessing trends in overweight and obesity rates, which have been steadily increasing over the past decades, especially in the United States.