Prevalence and Trends of Severe Obesity Among US Children and Adolescents (original) (raw)
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JAMA, 2016
EXPOSURES Survey period. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Obesity was defined as a body mass index (BMI) at or above the sex-specific 95th percentile on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) BMI-forage growth charts. Extreme obesity was defined as a BMI at or above 120% of the sex-specific 95th percentile on the CDC BMI-forage growth charts. Detailed estimates are presented for 2011-2014. The analyses of linear and quadratic trends in prevalence were conducted using 9 survey periods. Trend analyses between 2005-2006 and 2013-2014 also were conducted. RESULTS Measurements from 40 780 children and adolescents (mean age, 11.0 years; 48.8% female) between 1988-1994 and 2013-2014 were analyzed. Among children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 years, the prevalence of obesity in 2011-2014 was 17.0% (95% CI, 15.5%-18.6%) and extreme obesity was 5.8% (95% CI, 4.9%-6.8%). Among children aged 2 to 5 years, obesity increased from 7.2% (95% CI, 5.8%-8.8%) in 1988-1994 to 13.9% (95% CI, 10.7%-17.7%) (P < .001) in 2003-2004 and then decreased to 9.4% (95% CI, 6.8%-12.6%) (P = .03) in 2013-2014. Among children aged 6 to 11 years, obesity increased from 11.3% (95%
Childhood Obesity in the United States of America
European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 2014
Obesity in the U.S. is a problem that is beginning to grow large in our children‘s lives. The solution to this problem is centered in three areas; the help of the community, health education, and consumer education. The two main factors casing childhood obesity is eating high fat, high protein foods along with a serious sedentary lifestyle. Childhood obesity in the United State is a rising epidemic, a serious health crisis, and is steadily increasing because it seems that people refuse to change for the good of the nation. Since the last decade the percentage of children being obese has increased steadily. The cause of this is a poor nutrition and physical activity and the plan is to get back to how it used to be, if not better. Children in the U.S. are eating more processed foods at home and there is less physical activity and sports at school. While children are developing bad habits when they are young, they are likely to turn into an adult who is obese and has bad habits. This i...
Extent of overweight among US children and adolescents from 1971 to 2000
International journal of obesity and related metabolic disorders : journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 2004
The prevalence of overweight (OW) among children in the United States has increased during the last three decades, but prevalence measures fail to reveal the extent to which OW children exceed the OW threshold. To measure the amount by which OW children exceed the OW threshold. To examine the trend in this measure over the last three decades using data with measured weights and heights. Data used for analysis are from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for persons between 2 and 19 y of age from 1971 to 2000. Anthropometric measures were obtained by trained health technicians, and the sample sizes range from 4037 in 1999-2000 to 10,590 in 1988-1994. The extent of OW is measured as the average amount by which each child's body mass index (BMI) exceeds their age and gender-specific OW threshold. This measure is examined by sex, age group and race/ethnicity. The OW threshold for those aged 2-19 y is defined as at or above the 95th percentile of the sex-spe...
Population Health Issue: Childhood Obesity
Academia Letters, 2021
Childhood obesity is steadily gaining prominence as a major public health issue in the United States (US) and globally. Over the last three decades, the growth in childhood obesity and overweight has received the attention of scholars, health policymakers, institutions, and the general public (Williams & Greene, 2018). According to recent findings, obese and overweight children are highly vulnerable to the problem of obesity in adulthood, making it important to adopt, comprehensive, holistic and multi-sectorial interventions and programs aimed at managing, preventing and responding to this particular health issue. Notably, childhood obesity is recorded in children and teenagers with a Body Mass Index (BMI) that is at or above the 95th percentile for their respective age, height, weight and gender (Yusuf et al, 2020). Precisely, the BMI is a representation of the ratio of weight (in kilograms) to height (in meters). As a complex and serious public health problem in the United States and beyond, obesity in young children and adolescents is attributed to a myriad of causal factors including lack of access to healthy food options, absence of regular physical activity, regular exposure to unhealthy food adverts, poor food choices, hereditary and environmental factors (Kumar & Kelly, 2017). As a result, the problem of childhood obesity as experienced in the modern American society can be attributed to the physical environment, genetics and ecological aspects including the family, lifestyles, school and the community. Although obesity is a persistent health issue affecting all population demographics in the country, childhood obesity is a complex public health issue with additional consequences due to the high vulnerability of the affected populace (NASEM, 2016). According to Donahue (2018), severe obesity in children and adolescents is associated with an enhanced risk of poor health outcomes,
Prevalence of Extreme Obesity in a Multiethnic Cohort of Children and Adolescents
The Journal of Pediatrics, 2010
Objective-To estimate the prevalence of extreme obesity in a large, multiethnic contemporary cohort of children and adolescents. Study design-In a cross-sectional study, measured weight and height were extracted from electronic medical records of 710 949 patients aged 2 to 19 years (87.8% of eligible patients) who were enrolled in an integrated prepaid health plan in 2007 and 2008. Prevalence of extreme obesity was defined as body mass index (BMI)-forage ≥1.2 times 95th percentile or BMI ≥35 kg/m 2. Results-Extreme obesity was observed in 7.3% of boys and 5.5% of girls. The prevalence peaked at 10 years of age in boys and at 12 years of age with a bimodal distribution in girls (second peak at 18 years; P value for sex × age interaction = .036). The prevalence of extreme obesity varied in ethnic/racial and age groups, with the highest prevalence in Hispanic boys (as high as 11.2%) and African-American girls (as high as 11.9%). Conclusion-Extreme obesity in Southern California youth is frequently observed at relatively young ages. The shift toward extreme body weights is likely to cause an enormous burden of adverse health outcomes once these children and adolescents grow older.
The American journal of clinical nutrition, 1980
The relative body weights of 1830 children from low-income families ranging in age from 2 months to 18 years were calculated using the weight-for-length index (WLI). The effects of age, sex and race on WLI were tested with a 3-way analysis of variance test. A significant age and race interaction was found for the whole sample, as well as significant age and sex interaction for blacks only. Additional analysis revealed that most of the variance in WLI could be explained by weight variations in black females. When the children were classified as obese, overweight, and thin basedon their WLI scores, black males were found to have the lowest prevalence of obesity followed by slightly higher values for the other groups. When overweight and obese children were combined into one group, black females had the highest prevalence of overweight-obese children followed by white males, black males, and white females. In contrast, white females had the highest prevalence of thinness, followed by w...
Overweight and obesity in children. A brief review
2020
Overweight and obesity are conditions of excessive body fat accumulation. In clinical practice, child and adolescent overweight and obesity are commonly identified by age- and gender-specific body mass index (BMI) percentiles, BMI standard deviation scores, and waist circumference (WC) percentiles relative to a reference population. A recent analysis of population data of children aged five to 19 years estimated that in 2016 obesity was identified in 50 million girls and 74 million boys worldwide. In the USA in 2014, the prevalence of child and adolescent obesity (BMI > 95th centile) was 9.4% (two to five years), 17.4% (six to 11 years), and 20.6% (12 to 19 years). In Europe, obesity prevalence was on average 4.0% in adolescents, with vast differences between countries. Childhood obesity prevalence is increasing in middle- and low-income countries, for example, up to 40% of children in Mexico were living with obesity or overweight, 32% in Lebanon and 28% in Argentina. Health prob...