In 1960, just 14 percent of American adults were obese, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number remained relatively stable until 1980.

Prevalence of Overweight, Obesity, and Extreme Obesity Among Adults: United States, Trends 1960–1962 Through 2007–2008

Today, more than 40% of American adults are obese, and more than 300,000 American adults die from obesity-related causes each year.

Estimating Deaths Attributable to Obesity in the United States

According to Statistics Canada, obese Canadians represented just 14 percent of the population in 1978, but by 2015 the number had risen to 27 percent.

Obesity in Canada: Prevalence among adults
Trends and projections of obesity among Canadians

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 47 percent of Americans, 39 percent of Mexicans, and 35 percent of Brits will be obese by 2030.

Obesity Update 2017

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, today almost half of adult Americans are pre-diabetic (34 percent) or diabetic (10 percent), three times the rate a half century ago.

New CDC report: More than 100 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes

A 2016 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 11.5 percent of American deaths were due to complications of diabetes. That’s four times the number recorded on death certificates and makes diabetes, in fact, the third leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease and cancer.

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
The Disease That May Be a Leading Cause of Death

The number of Canadians diagnosed with diabetes has grown by an alarming 50 percent over the past 10 years. If the current trend continues, an estimated 44 percent of Canadians will be diabetic by 2025. The numbers are frightening, as are the nasty complications associated with the disease. People with diabetes are 25 times more prone to vision loss, 20 times more likely to have a limb amputated, and 12 times more likely to be hospitalized with kidney failure.

11 million Canadians are living with diabetes or prediabetes – chances are, the disease affects you or someone you know
New diabetes rates released with urgent plea for governments to implement national diabetes strategy