Surprisingly, 49 percent of Americans said they would like to lose weight. It's the first time in at least 25 years that less than half of Americans reported want to shed some pounds, Gallup poll reported. The number is down from a high of 62 percent, counting from at least 10 years ago.
41 percent of the surveyed Americans are so happy with their current appearance and would like to stay at their present weight.
The poll, which was conducted from November 4 to November 8 of the previous year illustrated positive results from majority of their respondents saying that 56 percent of Americans consider their weight to be "about right," whereas 37 percent said they consider themselves to be "very" or "somewhat overweight".
According to Dr. Holly Lofton, the director of the Medical Weight Management Program at New York University Langone Medical Center, these people who think that they are normal are using their friends or the people they know as their physical standard, saying "If everybody looks like their friends, then you think that you're just normal weight."
But, the survey only focused on the perception and self view of the respondents. Ironically, Obesity rates are still rising in the country.
In fact, the rising percentages of people who are overweight and obese may partly explain why so many Americans consider themselves to be at a normal weight. "You're normal weight by American standards, not by medical standards," Langone said. (A "normal" weight range means the individual has a Body Mass Index (BMI) that's between 18.5 and 24.9.)
Shifting standards of beauty - particularly female beauty - may also have contributed to the change. Girls don't want to look like waif-like models anymore, and that's certainly a good thing for confidence and body image, Lofton said. But people still need to focus more on their health rather than their body image and appearance, she reiterated.
And although almost half, or 49 percent of Americans still reported that they "would like to lose weight," only 24 percent reported that they were "seriously trying to lose weight," according to the poll.
Some people may simply say they want to lose weight because we're exposed to an overwhelming amount of information about weight loss every day, Lofton said.
But as to why only half of those people say they are seriously trying, Lofton noted that the poll only represents one small slice of time.
If you asked the same question at a different time of year, you would probably get the same percentage, but with different people, she said.
