Is the percentage of obese Americans finally starting to decline?

Something is moving in the United States. The OECD country with the highest prevalence of obese adults appears to be in the midst of a timid but palpable turnaround. This is what emerges from the latest survey conducted by Gallup, a market research and consulting firm that has been annually monitoring the health and well-being of American citizens since 2008. The latest data, released in recent days, indicates that the percentage of obese adults in the United States is projected to reach 37% in 2025, down almost 3 percentage points from 2022. This statistically significant reduction, according to the study's authors, could be linked to the spread of new anti-obesity drugs, whose use has doubled over the same period.

This is not a scientific study

Gallup's research, it should be emphasized, is not a scientific study, but a survey conducted by a private company. The results should therefore be interpreted with extreme caution, especially if one wishes to understand the possible reasons for the company's observed reduction in obesity prevalence among American adults. Nonetheless, these are interesting data, which could signal a turning point in the currently growing obesity epidemic in America.

Obesity on the decline

The survey involved over 16,000 American adults contacted in the first nine months of 2025. Participants were asked, among other things, to report their weight and height, which were then used to calculate their body mass index (BMI), as well as the percentage of respondents who were clinically obese, with a BMI above 30. As mentioned, 37% of respondents were found to be obese, compared to 39.9% in the same survey in 2022. If the results were applied to the entire American population, this would mean 7.6 million fewer obese people in just three years.

Drugs increasingly widespread

The survey also investigated the prevalence of new anti-obesity drugs, known as GLP-1 analogues. In February 2024, when the company first began collecting data on these therapies, the percentage of respondents using them was 5.8%. In the latest survey, however, it more than doubled, rising to 12.4%. Women appear to be the primary users, with prevalence reaching 15.2%, compared to 9.7% for men.

According to Gallup researchers, the statistics on obesity and drug use closely align: the prevalence of obesity has decreased most among women and in the 50-64 age group, which is also the age group with the highest use of GLP-1 analogs (17% of the sample in this age group). Only for those over 65 do the two results diverge, with a 0.8% increase in obesity prevalence compared to a 6.5 percentage point increase in use of new drugs. However, the report suggests that this could be explained by a reduced efficacy of therapies in older age.