I wonder if the obesity epidemic is related to the fact that far fewer people are smoking cigarettes these days.
…….
More specifically, in three of the past four Gallup smoking measurements (conducted between July 2007 and today), only 20% or 21% of American adults have said they smoked cigarettes in the past week. Compared with the average of 25% who said they smoked from 2000 through 2006, this suggests a recent decline in U.S. smoking. (For the full trend, see the table elsewhere in this report.)
The latest result comes from Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits survey, conducted July 10-13, 2008.
Self-reported adult smoking peaked in 1954 at 45%, and remained at 40% or more through the early 1970s, but has since gradually declined. The average rate of smoking across the decades fell from 40% in the 1970s to 32% in the 1980s, 26% in the 1990s, and 24% since 2000.
Obesity was relatively stable in the U.S. between 1960 and 1980 when about 15% of people fell into the category, and then it increased dramatically in the ’80s and ’90s.
