Floridians are nearly 10 percent fatter than CDC reports, study found

Floridians are fatter than they believe.

A University of Florida study examining data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the state’s obesity rate is likely about 10 percent higher.

The CDC says 28 percent of Floridians are obese but the university researchers found a more accurate rate is 37 percent.

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What explains the discrepancy?

The CDC uses self-reported data based on what people say during telephone interviews. Human nature being human nature, they tend to lowball weight, the researchers found.

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UF researchers calculated the state’s obesity rate using a database of medical claims and electronic medical records of 12 million Floridians. The researchers specificially looked at data of 1.3 million records in the database.

“The data makes all the difference,” Matthew Gurka, a biomedical informatics professor at UF’s College of Medicine, said. “People responding to surveys tend to over-report their height and underreport their weight.”

Health records used by UF are based on health care visits patients made from 2012 to 2016, whereas the CDC self-reported data is from 2013.

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Having objective data from electronic medical records is crucial; the health risks linked to obesity are high, from Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

In Collier County, the adult obesity rate stands at 20 percent, one of several good health indicators that contribute to Collier being ranked the second healthiest county in the state for five years in a row, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The UF findings were published June 15 in the journal, Obesity Science and Practice.

“There is an urgency to address and understand true rates of obesity because there’s a lot of other health-related issues that are coupled with it,” Stephanie Filipp, a lead author and statistician with the College of Medicine.

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Here are some of the findings:

• More women, at 39 percent, are obese in Florida compared to 34.7 percent of men.
• Blacks have a higher obesity rate of 45.7 percent, followed 37.1 percent of Hispanics and 35.2 percent of non-Hispanic whites who are obese.
• There is significant geographic variation. A handful of counties had rates of 25 percent to 29.9 percent of residents are obese. About 10 counties had rates above 45 percent. The rates are higher in central, northern and Panhandle counties.