A new analysis is predicting that by 2030, 48.9% of adults in the United States will be obese and 24.2% will be severely obese.

Axar.az reports citing in addition, severe obesity - and the serious health problems and extra healthcare costs associated with it - will disproportionately affect women, low-income adults, non-Hispanic black adults, and states bordering the lower half of the Mississippi River.

The study projects from past trends, extending them to a state-by-state level and adjusting for the fact that people who respond to surveys on the obesity question often underestimate their weight and overestimate their height, according to chief author Zachary Ward, a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

A person with a body-mass index (BMI, a measure of weight relative to height) of 30 or above is considered obese. Having a BMI at or above 35 is regarded as severe obesity.