Obesity among baby boomers is more than double the rate of their parents at the same age, and boomers with three or more chronic conditions was 700 percent greater than the previous generation.
But it isn't just the Baby Boomers that are obese. Sadly, obesity has become a raging epidemic in America and all of the numbers show this.
For example, a study by the RAND corporation discovered that the percentage of Americans that are severely obese rose from 3.9 percent in the year 2000 to 6.6 percent in 2010.
That is a huge increase in just a decade.
And the numbers are even more sobering when you look at the percentage of Americans that are just obese (rather than being severely obese).
As I wrote about the other day, 36 percent of all Americans are considered to be obese, and it is being projected that by 2030 that number will rise to 42 percent.
To put that in perspective, it is important to note that only 13 percent of all Americans were obese back in 1962.
Sadly, not only are we getting fatter, many of us are also living shorter lives.
In a previous article, I quoted a CBS News story that discussed recent research which shows that the lifespans of poor Americans have been dropping rapidly in recent years....
Overall life expectancy has dropped for white Americans who have less than a high school diploma to rates similar to those of the 1950s and 1960s, new research finds.
The study found non-Hispanic white men without a diploma lived on average until 67.5 in 2008, three years less than they did in 1990. The drop in lifespan was even bigger for non-Hispanic white women with low education: They live five years shorter than 1990 rates, from 78 years old to just 73.5.
Why are people not living as long?
Well, our lifestyles certainly are not helping things. The average American watches 28 hours of television every single week. That is not conducive to a long and happy life.
But of course a lot of other factors are at play as well.
When you don't have a lot of money, you can't afford to eat healthy and you can't afford to go see the doctor much.
