America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009
Overweight
Overweight adolescents often become overweight adults, with increased risks for a wide variety of poor health outcomes, including diabetes, stroke, heart disease, arthritis, and certain cancers.137,138 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.139 The prevalence of overweight among U.S. children changed relatively little from the early 1960s through 1980; however, after 1980 it increased sharply.140 Between 1999 and 2006, the prevalence of overweight was stable in both boys and girls.141 Recent national estimates indicate that only 35 percent of adolescents meet current physical activity recommendations and only about 21 percent eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day.142 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 HEALTH7: Percentage of children ages 6–17 who are overweight by gender, selected years 1976–2006
NOTE: Overweight is defined as body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile of the 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sex-specific BMI-for-age growth charts. BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters.
SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
- Since the 1980s, there has been an increase in the percentage of children who are overweight. During the period 1976–1980, only 6 percent of children ages 6–17 were overweight. By 1988–1994, this percentage had risen to 11 percent of children ages 6–17, and in 1999–2000 it was 15 percent. In 2005–2006, 17 percent of children were overweight. There was no significant change in the percentage of overweight children between 2003–2004 and 2005–2006.
- In 2005–2006, there was no difference between boys and girls in the percentage of children who were overweight.
- In 2005–2006, 15 percent of children ages 6–11 were overweight and 18 percent of adolescents ages 12–17 were overweight. There was no statistical difference between the percentages of the younger and older age groups.
137 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.
138 Pi-Sunyer, F.X. (1991). Health complications of obesity. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 53, 15955–16035.
139 Dietz, W.H. (1998). Health consequences of obesity in youth: Childhood predictors of adult disease. Pediatrics, 105, 518–525.
140 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.
141 Ogden, C.L., Carroll, M.D., and Flegal, K.M. (2008) High body mass index for age among U.S. children and adolescents, 2003–2006. Journal of the American Medical Association, 299(20), 2401–2405.
142 Eaton, D.K., Kann, L., Kinchen, S., Shanklin, S., Ross, J., Hawkins, J., Harris, W.A., Lowry, R., McManus, T., Chyen, D., Lim, C., Brener, N.D., and Wechsler, H. (2008). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Youth risk behavior surveillance—United States, 2007. Surveillance Summaries [June 6]. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2008, 57(4), 1–131.