Assessment Of Alaskans' Weight, Access To Vegetables, Exercise Shows Mixed Bag
FROM THE ALASKA BEACON New state report says Alaska teens and adults are getting fatter Adults and children in the state are falling short...
FROM THE ALASKA BEACON
New state report says Alaska teens and adults are getting fatter
Adults and children in the state are falling short of health goals, though there has been some improvement in places, the report says
A cyclist pedals on Anchorage's Chester Creek trail past Westchester Lagoon on Friday afternoon. Obesity rates in Alaska have risen steadily since the 1990s, but a new sign of progress is increased physical activity by adults. Improvements to pedestrian and bicycling spaces could make it easier for people to exercise, health officials say. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Alaskans are much more overweight than they used to be, with adult obesity rates nearly tripled since 1991, according to a new state report.
The 2025 Alaska Physical Activity, Nutrition and Obesity Facts Report, part of a series of documents published every five years by the Alaska Department of Health, shows a continued trend toward poorer physical fitness even though Alaskans have taken some steps toward improvement.
Alaskans are drinking fewer sugary drinks and exercising more, but that wasn’t enough to keep obesity rates from rising, the data shows.
The long-term slide will likely take a lot of time and effort to reverse, said Katie Reilly, the Alaska Division of Public Health’s physical activity and nutrition unit manager.
“I feel like these contradictions and trends really just highlight what a complex and challenging issue this is,” said Reilly, one of the main authors of this year’s report.
The results help confirm what public health managers stress in their programs: that “no single behavior strategy or program alone will increase physical activity or improve nutrition or decrease unhealthy weight and its related consequences,” she said. “It’s really going to take a comprehensive approach.”
For now, the statistics are mostly negative.
A third of Alaska adults were overweight in 2023 and another 36% were classified as obese, while only 29% were at a healthy weight and 2% were considered underweight. That is a big change since the early 1990s, when only 13% of Alaska adults were obese and about half were classified as being at a healthy weight, according to the report.
The latest Alaska obesity rate is slightly lower than the national 40.3% rate reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last September. However, unlike the Alaska rate, the national obesity rate has declined slightly in the last few years.
Determining what has changed since the 1990s is complicated, Reilly said.
One factor is the increasing sedentary nature of daily life, she said. “Today we have fewer opportunities to move, and we spend more time sitting at our desks or driving our cars and in front of screens,” she said.
Healthier foods can be harder to find, especially in rural communities, and food labels can be misleading, encouraging people to consume less-healthful products, she said.
The good news about Alaska adults is that they have boosted their physical activity, according to the report. About two-thirds of Alaska adults are meeting U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommendations for aerobic activity and about 45% are meeting the federal recommendations for muscle-strengthening activity, the report said. The federal recommendation is for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week and at least two days a week of strengthening activity.
While Alaskans’ physical activity improvement may be slowing the increase in obesity and related problems, “we have not turned the tide yet, and that is the goal,” Reilly said.
Among children, from preschoolers to teenagers, the statistics are better than those for adults, but there are still increases in obesity and lower-than-recommended levels of exercise.
Among Alaska high school students, for example, 64% were at a healthy weight in 2023, 16% were overweight and 17% were obese, the report said. Fewer than one in five high schoolers got the recommended 60 minutes a day of physical exercise, and – as the case is with Alaska adults — fewer than one in 10 ate the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables, the report said.
Consumption of sugary beverages is significantly down across most age groups, the report said. For example, 76% of 3-year-olds did not drink any sugary beverages daily in 2022, an improvement from the 57% rate in 2008, the report said.
Reilly said the state’s Play Every Day program, which includes messaging about the dangers of sugary beverages, appears to have helped inspire Alaskans to cut back their sugary beverage consumption.
The Play Every Day program is run by the Physical Activity and Nutrition Program in partnership with the nonprofit Healthy Futures.
Other programs that are available include the Division of Public Health’s Fresh Startprogram, which pairs participants with coaches to encourage healthier lifestyles that include better diets, more exercise and other steps to prevent chronic health problems.
There is also a federal grant program to help communities be more pedestrian-friendly and therefore better places for outdoor physical activity, Reilly said. Representatives of Bethel, Kotzebue, Dillingham, Sitka, Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula participated earlier this year in the Alaska Walkability Action Institute, she said.
The federally funded program brings together transportation planners and health experts to work on ways to improve pedestrian and bicycling opportunities.
Data used in the Physical Activity, Nutrition and Obesity Facts Report came from a variety of health-monitoring surveys, including the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which has been operating continuously since 1991, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the Childhood Understanding Behaviors Survey and others. Data also came from school districts and regional organizations.
