Obesity is high and holding steady in the U.S., but the proportion of those with severe obesity — especially women — has climbed since a decade ago, according to new government research.

The U.S. obesity rate is about 40%, according to a 2021-2023 survey of about 6,000 people. Nearly 1 in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity.

The overall obesity rate appeared to tick down vs. a 2017-2020 survey, but the change wasn’t considered statistically significant; the numbers are small enough that there’s a mathematical chance they didn’t truly decline.

That means it’s too soon to know whether new treatments for obesity, including blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, can help ease the epidemic of the chronic disease linked to a host of health problems, according to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer who led the latest study.

Most telling though, the results that show that the overall obesity rate in the U.S. has not changed significantly in a decade, even as the rate of severe obesity climbed from nearly 8% in the 2013-2014 survey to nearly 10% in the most recent one. Before that, obesity had increased rapidly in the U.S. since the 1990s, federal surveys showed.

“Seeing increases in severe obesity is even more alarming because that’s the level of obesity that’s most highly associated with some of the highest levels of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and lower quality of life,” said Solveig Cunningham, an Emory University global health professor who specializes in obesity.

Cunningham, who was not involved in the new study, said it’s not clear why rates of severe obesity are going up, or why they were higher among women. Factors could include the effects of hormones, the impact of childbearing or other causes that require further study, she said.

The new study also found that obesity rates varied by education. Almost 32% of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported having obesity, compared with about 45% of those with some college or a high school diploma or less.

DOJ sues Visa: The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services behemoth uses its size and dominance to stifle competition in the debit card market, costing consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

The complaint filed Tuesday says San Francisco-based Visa penalizes merchants and banks who don’t use Visa’s own payment processing technology to process debit transactions, even though alternatives exist. Visa earns an incremental fee from every transaction processed on its network.

According to the DOJ’s complaint, 60% of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions.

“Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing — but the price of nearly everything,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement.

Visa’s general counsel, Julie Rottenberg, said in a statement the lawsuit doesn’t take into account the “ever expanding universe of companies offering new ways to pay for goods and services.”

Rottenberg added that the lawsuit is “meritless” and the company will “vigorously” defend itself.

Trump stalking suspect: A man who authorities say staked out former President Donald Trump for 12 hours on his golf course in Florida and wrote of his desire to kill him was indicted Tuesday on charges that he attempted to assassinate a major presidential candidate.

Ryan Wesley Routh had been initially charged with two federal firearms offenses.

The upgraded charges reflect the Justice Department’s assessment that he methodically plotted to kill the Republican nominee, aiming a rifle through the shrubbery surrounding Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course as Trump played on it. Routh also wrote a note in which he described his intention.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who in July dismissed a separate criminal case charging Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.