America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007
Overweight
Overweight adolescents often become overweight adults, with an increased risk for a wide variety of poor health outcomes, including diabetes, stroke, heart disease, arthritis, and certain cancers.122, 123 The immediate consequences of overweight in childhood are often psychosocial but also include cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and the precursors to diabetes.124 The prevalence of overweight among U.S. children changed relatively little from the early 1960s through 1980; however, since 1980 it has sharply increased.125 Between 1999 and 2004, being overweight increased in both boys and girls.126 Recent national estimates indicate that just 36 percent of adolescents meet current physical activity recommendations and only about 20 percent eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day.127 In addition to individual factors such as these, social, economic, and environmental forces (e.g., advances in technology and trends in eating out) may contribute to the increasing prevalence of being overweight.
Indicator HEALTH5: Percentage of children ages 6–17 who are overweight by gender, selected years 1976–2004
NOTE: Overweight is defined as body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile of the 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention BMI-for-age growth charts. BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters.
SOURCE: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
- Since the 1980s, there has been a steady increase in the proportion of children who are overweight. During the period 1976–1980, only 6 percent of children ages 6–17 were overweight. During 1988–1994, this proportion had risen to 11 percent, and it continued to climb to 18 percent during 2003–2004.
- During 2003–2004, Black, non-Hispanic females ages 6–17 were at particularly high risk of being overweight (25 percent), compared with White, non-Hispanic and Mexican American females (16 percent and 17 percent, respectively).128
- Among adolescent males ages 12–17, virtually no differences existed between racial and ethnic groups during 2003–2004 (19 percent of White, non-Hispanic, 19 percent of Black, non-Hispanic, and 19 percent of Mexican American males ages 12–17 were overweight).128
122 Serdula, M.K., Ivery, D., Coates, R.J., Freedman, D.S., Williamson, D.F., and Byers, T. (1993). Do obese children become obese adults? A review of the literature. Preventive Medicine, 22, 167–177.
123 Pi-Sunyer, F.X. (1991). Health complications of obesity. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 53, 15955–16035.
124 Dietz, W.H. (1998). Health consequences of obesity in youth: Childhood predictors of adult disease. Pediatrics, 105, 518–525.
125 Ogden, C.L., Flegal, K.M., Carroll, M.D., and Johnson, C.L. (2002). Prevalence and trends in overweight among U.S. children and adolescents, 1999–2000. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288(14), 1728–1732.
126 Ogden, C.L., Carroll, M.D., Curtin, L.R., McDowell, M.A., Tabak, C.J., and Flegal, K.M. (2006). Prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States, 1999–2004. Journal of the American Medical Association, 295(13), 1549–1555.
127 Eaton D.K., Kann L., Kinchen S., Ross J., Hawkins J., Harris W.A., Lowry R., McManus T., Chyen D., Shanklin S., Lim C., Grunbaum J.A., and Wechsler H. (2006). Youth risk behavior surveillance-United States, 2005. Surveillance Summaries, [June 9]. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2006, 55(SS-5), 1–108.
128 In this survey, respondents were asked to choose one or more races. All race groups discussed in this paragraph refer to people who indicated only one racial identity. Mexican American children may be of any race.