Obesity Statistics: Children

"Obesity Statistics show a dangerous trend for children and teens."

Prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents

Data from the NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) survey (2003–2006) indicate that approximately 12.4 percent of children age 2 to 5 and 17 percent of children age 6 to 11 were overweight.*** About 17.6 percent of adolescents (age 12 to 19) were overweight in 2003–2006.¹

*** Overweight is defined by the sex- and age-specific 95th percentile cutoff points of the 2000 CDC growth charts. These revised growth charts include smoothed sex-specific BMI for-age-percentiles and are based on data from NHES II (1963 to 1965) and III (1966 to 1970), and NHANES I (1971 to 1974), II (1976 to 1980), and III (1988 to 1994). The CDC BMI growth charts specifically excluded NHANES III data for children older than 6 years.²

Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. This increases to 80 percent if one or more parent is overweight or obese.³

Childhood obesity could decrease life expectancy by two to five years if something isn't done about the epidemic, according to provocative research by pediatric endocrinologist David Ludwig, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.⁴

One in three obese children have excess fat in their liver, which could lead to hepatitis, cirrhosis or liver failure, Ludwig says.

Obesity, glucose intolerance, and hypertension in childhood were strongly associated with increased rates of premature death from endogenous causes in this population. In contrast, childhood hypercholesterolemia was not a major predictor of premature death from endogenous causes.⁵

The New England Journal of Medicine reports on a long term study of almost 5,000 children. Those who were obese were more than twice as likely to die before age 55, the age used to define "early death."

Dr. Terra Quattrin is Chair of Pediatrics at U.B. and Pediatrician in Chief at Children's Hospital. She's an expert on childhood obesity and she points out that children at high risk may not look overweight.⁶

"And to me, what was also staggering was that 34 percent of these deaths were before age 34, so we're talking very young individuals. The only way to tell if a child is on his way or her way to becoming overweight is to calculate the body mass index," said Dr. Quattrin.

References

Coaching

If you are interested in coaching for fitness, or weight loss you can contact me HERE ...

Metabolism Makeover

The world of weight loss has become incredibly complex and confusing for people. I have simplified it and revealed hidden sources of weight gain and a ten step program to reverse the age of your metabolism and turn it into a lean, fit and healthy metabolism. If you are interested check out Metabolism Makeover.

Question or Comment?
Click Here!

Return to "Obesity Help"

Return from "Obesity Statistics: Children and Teens" to "Natural Weight Loss" Home Page

Are You A Member of Facebook?

Share this with someone you care about! Click in the link below and you can chose who on Facebook you want to share it with.

Share

You can also become a Metabolism Makeover fan here.

Pay It Forward!

There a lot of people that have become disillusioned by poor weight loss and health information. I can understand this feeling. But it does not mean that good information is NOT out there. It is.

Please help a friend or loved one by sharing this information with them. Email this link to them or submit this page to your Tweet account, or Facebook or your favorite social bookmarking or networking site. Use the links below to pay it forward.