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Study: 60% of U.S. Adults are Drinkers

Around six in 10 American adults drink alcohol and the same number are either overweight or obese, according federal health statistics.

The National Center for Health Statistics released a report Monday on health behaviors of American adults. Data was collected between 2005 and 2007.

Among the other key findings:

While 61.2 percent of adults are current drinkers, nearly a quarter said they were lifetime abstainers. About 14 percent were former drinkers and around 5 percent were classified as heavy drinkers.
Men were more likely be current drinkers than women (67.6 percent compared with 55.3 percent); Women were more likely to be lifetime abstainers (30.9 percent compared with 17.7 percent).
Separated by race, white men had the highest level of current drinkers (69.9 percent) while Asian adults had the highest rate of lifetime abstinence (47.8 percent).
Around 20 percent of adults were current smokers, while more than half (58.5 percent) say they’ve never smoked cigarettes.
Sixteen percent of smokers said they did so daily and averaged 17 cigarettes a day.
Among current smokers, 42.5 percent tried to quit in the past year.
Only around 30 percent of adults regularly exercise, while around 60 percent say they engage in at least some physical activity during their leisure time.
While roughly 60 percent of adults are overweight or obese (meaning their body mass index is greater than 25), around 40 percent maintain a healthy weight.
Men were much more likely to be overweight than women (67.9 percent compared with 53.0 percent) though obesity affected men and women roughly equally (25.7 percent and 25.0 percent, respectively).
Separated by race, Hispanic adults were most likely to be overweight or obese (67.5 percent).
Around six in 10 adults report they usually get between seven to eight hours of sleep every day.

The Health Behaviors of Adults survey was based on 79,096 interviews of Americans age 18 and over.

The National Center for Health Statistics is a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

source: CBS News

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