Severely obese persons (BMI ≥ 40) have a greatly increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and many other ailments that are very expensive to treat. The table gives the percent of Americans who are severely obese for the years from 1990 and projected to 2030.

(a) Find an exponential function that models the data, with x equal to the number of years after 1980 and y equal to the percent. Report the model with 4 significant digits.

(b) Does the unrounded model overestimate or underestimate the percent of severely obese Americans in 2020?

(c) According to the unrounded model, when are 8.5% of Americans expected to be severely obese?

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Year 1990 2000 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 % Severely 0.8 Obese 2.2 4.9 6.4 7.9 9.5 11.1