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Tis the season to gain a pound or two and to never lose it. A new report from the Gallup Poll reveals that as Americans actual weight is inching upward, so are perceptions of what their ideal weight should be, WebMD reports.
Gallup's annual Health and Healthcare Survey asked Americans yearly how much they weigh and what their ideal weight would be. Compared with their answers to the same questions in 1991, both numbers -- actual and ideal weight -- have risen. The "ideal" weights, however, have not kept pace with actual weight gains.
The average American man now weighs 196 pounds and the average woman weighs 160 pounds. But both figures are 20 pounds greater than the self-reported weights of 1990.
Americans' self-reported "ideal" bodies have also put on weight. On average, women on average said their ideal weight would be 138 pounds -- up from 129 in 1991; men reported their ideal weight would be 196 pounds -- up from 180 in 1991.
Approximately one in four Americans who are one to 10 pounds over their ideal weight do not think of themselves as overweight, the report says.
The heavier the population gets as a whole, the more easily we normalize overweight, says the Gallup Poll.
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