Hispanics are a growing segment of U.S. society

• The Hispanic population in the US soared 58% in the 1990s to 35 million.  Hispanics now make up more than 12% of the population. (US Census Bureau)
  
  
• In 2003, Hispanics became the nation’s largest minority group – even though African-Americans outnumbered them 2 to 1 as recently as 1980. (Population Reference Bureau)
  
  
• Hispanics will account for one-third of the nation by 2030. (Food Product Design)
  
  
• Hispanics accounted for 40% of US growth between 1980 and 2000. (Population Reference Bureau)
  
  
• Mexican-Americans are the majority of Hispanics at 66%, followed by Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Colombians. (FMI)

US Hispanics have significant buying power

• Hispanic buying power is already larger than the entire economies of all but 11 countries in the world. (Baltimore Business Journal)
  
  
• US Hispanics had the sharpest increase in disposable income from 1990 to 2002 of any racial or ethnic group. (Selig Center for Economic Growth, U. of GA.)
  
  
• Hispanics make at least twice as many grocery shopping trips per month than any other consumer segment. (FMI)
  
  
• Hispanics spend 21% more than other consumers on the average shopping trip. (ASU professor Louis Olivas)
  
  
• 69% of US Hispanics speak Spanish at home and 62% prefer speaking Spanish to English. Marketing in Spanish is five times more persuasive with Hispanics than English. (Burson Marsteller)

US Hispanics are at high risk for lifestyle- and diet-related health problems

• Obesity rates in US Hispanics doubled between 1991 and 2001, rising from 11.6% to 23.7%. (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)
  
  
• 23% of Hispanic males are obese, while 27.5% of Hispanic females are obese.  Rates for non-Hispanic whites are slightly lower, at 22 and 21% respectively. (CDC)
  
  
• On average, Hispanic Americans are 1.9 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites of similar age. (National Diabetes Clearinghouse)  10.4% of men and 11.3% of women in the Hispanic population have diagnosed diabetes, compared to 7.2% of men and 6.3% of women in the general population. (CDC)
  
  
• Only 45.0% of Hispanic adults engage in at least some leisure-time physical activity, compared to 49.3% of non-Hispanic blacks and 65.7% of non-Hispanic whites. (CDC)
  
  
• Mexican-Americans have the highest age-adjusted rate of Metabolic Syndrome, at 31.9%.  This compares to whites at 23.8%, African-Americans at 21.6% and “other” at 20.3%.  Metabolic Syndrome is a combination of symptoms (waist size, blood pressure, fasting glucose, etc.) considered a precursor for diabetes and other chronic diseases. (CDC)