The answer depends on which metric you look at. Life expectancy in the United States reached 79.0 years in 2024, up from 78.4 the year before, recovering ground lost during the pandemic. Drug overdose deaths dropped sharply, and maternal mortality fell. But obesity rates remain at 40%, nearly half of adults don’t exercise enough, and more than half of the average American’s calories come from ultra-processed food. America is getting healthier in some important ways while staying stuck, or even sliding backward, in others.
Life Expectancy Is Climbing Again
U.S. life expectancy hit 79.0 years in 2024, a gain of 0.6 years over 2023. Men saw the bigger jump, adding 0.7 years to reach 76.5, while women gained 0.3 years to reach 81.4. The improvement was driven largely by fewer deaths from unintentional injuries, COVID-19, heart disease, cancer, and homicide.
That’s encouraging, but context matters. Before the pandemic, life expectancy was already stalling compared to other wealthy nations. The U.S. still trails most of Western Europe, Japan, and Australia by two to four years. The recent gains represent a rebound more than a breakthrough.
Overdose Deaths Fell Significantly
One of the clearest bright spots is the decline in drug overdose deaths. In 2024, 79,384 Americans died from overdoses, down from over 100,000 just a couple of years earlier. Deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl dropped 35.6% in a single year. Cocaine-related deaths fell 26.7%, and deaths involving methamphetamine and similar stimulants dropped nearly 20%.
Those are some of the steepest declines in the history of the overdose crisis. The numbers are still devastating (79,000 deaths is roughly the population of a small city), but the trajectory has clearly shifted in a positive direction for the first time in years.
Obesity Remains Stubbornly High
About 40.3% of American adults are obese, and 9.4% meet the threshold for severe obesity, based on data collected between August 2021 and August 2023. Those numbers have been climbing for decades and show no meaningful sign of reversing at the population level. Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and several cancers, making it one of the most consequential health challenges the country faces.
The arrival of GLP-1 medications has generated enormous public interest, and individual outcomes can be dramatic. But population-level obesity data hasn’t yet reflected that impact, and it’s unclear how widely or sustainably these drugs will be used across the full population.
Most Americans Don’t Move Enough
Federal guidelines recommend a combination of aerobic activity and muscle-strengthening exercise each week. Only about 24% of adults meet both targets. Nearly half, 46.3%, don’t meet either one. Men are somewhat more active than women: 28.3% of men hit both benchmarks compared to 20.4% of women.
Physical inactivity is closely tied to the chronic disease numbers. It contributes to obesity, heart disease, depression, and diabetes. The fact that three out of four adults fall short of basic activity recommendations is one of the largest structural health problems in the country, and it hasn’t improved meaningfully in recent years.
Chronic Disease Is Widespread
About 42% of Americans live with two or more chronic health conditions, and 12% have five or more. That includes conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and depression. Chronic disease accounts for the majority of healthcare spending in the U.S. and is the leading driver of disability and early death.
These numbers reflect the cumulative effect of decades of high obesity rates, low physical activity, and poor diet quality. Even as life expectancy ticks upward, the burden of living with chronic illness remains enormous, and for many people, the quality of those added years matters as much as the quantity.
Diet Quality Hasn’t Improved
More than half the calories Americans consume, 55% on average, come from ultra-processed foods. These are products like packaged snacks, soft drinks, frozen meals, and fast food that have been heavily manufactured and typically contain added sugars, refined starches, and industrial additives. Adults get about 53% of their calories from these foods, while children and teens consume even more at nearly 62%.
This is significant because ultra-processed food consumption is consistently linked to higher rates of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. The dominance of these foods in the American diet is both a cause and a reflection of the country’s metabolic health struggles. Until this ratio shifts, population-wide improvements in obesity and chronic disease will be difficult to achieve.
Smoking Down, Vaping Up
Cigarette smoking continues its long decline and remains one of the great public health success stories in American history. But e-cigarette use among adults rose from 3.7% in 2020 to 6.5% in 2023. While vaping is generally considered less harmful than combustible cigarettes, the long-term health effects aren’t fully understood, and the trend is moving in the wrong direction, particularly among younger adults.
Maternal Mortality Is Falling
The maternal mortality rate dropped to 16.7 deaths per 100,000 live births as of the 12-month period ending September 2025, down from a peak of around 23.8 per 100,000 in late 2020. That’s a meaningful improvement, though the U.S. rate still far exceeds that of other high-income countries.
More People Have Insurance
In 2024, 92% of the population (about 310 million people) had health insurance for some or all of the year. Broader coverage generally means more people can access preventive care, screenings, and early treatment. Still, 8% of the population, roughly 27 million people, had gaps in coverage or none at all.
The Overall Picture
America in 2025 is a country where you’re less likely to die from a drug overdose, COVID, or homicide than you were three years ago. Life expectancy is recovering. Maternal deaths are declining. More people have health insurance. These are real, measurable gains.
At the same time, 4 in 10 adults are obese, nearly half get almost no exercise, more than half of daily calories come from ultra-processed food, and 42% of the population juggles multiple chronic conditions. The foundations of long-term health, what people eat and how much they move, haven’t improved. America is getting better at not dying from acute crises. It has made far less progress on the slow-building conditions that shape how well, and how long, people actually live.