health
Obesity (adults)
Why this matters
Obesity in adults measures the share of adults whose weight, relative to their height, falls in a range linked to higher health risk (based on body mass index, a height-and-weight ratio). On this platform the numbers are modeled estimates that combine survey responses with population data, so treat them as close approximations rather than exact counts, and read them as the level in each year, not as year-to-year change (the CDC does not support using them as a trend).
Obesity matters because it raises the risk of conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and some cancers, and it drives higher medical costs.
Many causes are about access and environment, not personal willpower: the price and availability of healthy food, safe places to walk or play, work schedules, sleep, stress, and health care all play a role. In Mecklenburg County, these conditions, and the outcomes that follow, track the crescent/wedge geography mapped by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Mecklenburg Community Health Assessment.
About the Charlotte region
This explorer covers the 14-county, two-state Charlotte region (11 North Carolina and 3 South Carolina counties). Many of these indicators connect to a defining regional story: a landmark Harvard study ranked Charlotte last, 50th of the 50 largest U.S. metros for economic mobility (a child raised in the poorest fifth had about a 4.4% chance of reaching the top fifth), a finding that launched the region's Leading on Opportunity agenda. Updated 2024 data show Charlotte has since climbed to 38th.
Opportunity here is also unevenly mapped. An affluent “wedge” fanning southeast from uptown holds a large majority of the city's wealth on under a quarter of its land, while a ”crescent” to the north, west, and east carries higher poverty, a legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and highway routing that recurs across the race, income, health, tree-canopy, and school maps in this tool. No single indicator is good or bad on its own; together they describe how the region sorted opportunity.
Companion resources: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer · UNC Charlotte Urban Institute · Opportunity Atlas · Methods & sources
Learn more
- CDC — Adult Obesity Facts cdc.gov
How common adult obesity is, related health conditions, and medical costs.
- CDC — About PLACES cdc.gov
Explains the model-based small-area method behind the local estimates.
- County Health Rankings — Adult Obesity countyhealthrankings.org
The measure, why it matters, and the community conditions that shape it.
- Mecklenburg Community Health Assessment health.mecknc.gov
Local public-health data and neighborhood health disparities for Mecklenburg County.
About the data
Model-based small-area estimates from the CDC PLACES project (2018–2023), which uses BRFSS survey data and multilevel regression & poststratification to estimate adult prevalence for every Census tract. Each estimate has a confidence interval; values with high uncertainty are flagged.
Source: CDC PLACES (model-based small-area estimates).