A paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. The last two decades have seen considerable rise in waistlines of American people, said researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis after studying data over a five year period ending in 2012.

Registered dietician Sue Moores finds the rise in nationwide obesity numbers concerning, despite more people are walking, running or biking to maintain healthy weight.

The study has found that 75% of men and 67% of women are overweight or obese. Obesity is known to give rise to many illnesses, like diabetes and heart problems,

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from more than 15,000 men and women aged 25 or older of a nationally representative group collected between 2007 and 2012 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

The researchers determined that two-thirds of American women over 25 have body weight more than what is considered normal. “We see this as a wake-up call to implement policies and practices designed to combat overweight and obesity, to implement what we already know into place to accelerate the obesity prevention and treatment”, said Lin Yang, a researcher in the Division of Public Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine.

Yang said it is very important to implement population-based strategies to reverse the obesity trend through physical environment interventions. It is the need of the hour to foster primary care efforts and shift society norms and behavior.