Rates of overweight and obesity are too high in both children and adults across the United States and most other countries across the world [1,2]. The prevalence of obesity in childhood has doubled in 73 countries and continues to grow in many other countries [3]. The rate of overweight and obesity across the world in 0 to 5 years olds increased from 32 million children to 41 million children in 2016, and 107.7 million children overall [3,4]. There has been more than a 30% higher increase in the number of overweight or obese children in developing countries compared to developed countries. Overweight affects 21.4% of children in the United States [3]. Obesity affects 18.5% of children in the United States [6]. The age distribution among children is 13.9% of two to five year olds, 18.4% of six to 11 year olds, and 20.6% of 12 to 19 year olds [6]. Untreated childhood obesity often continues into adulthood [6].

References

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2. Stevens GA., et al. “National, regional, and global trends in adult overweight and obesity prevalences”. Population Health Metrics 10 (2012): 22.
3. GBD 2015 Obesity Collaborators. Effects of Overweight and Obesity in 195 Countries over 25 Years”. The New England Journal of Medicine (2017): 13-27.
4. World Health Organization (WHO). Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (2019).
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6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Child Obesity Facts (2019).
7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity Among WIC – Enrolled Young Children (2019).
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10. Nguyen D., et al. “Abnormal Cholesterol Among Children and Adolescents in the United States, 2011 – 2014”. NCHS Data Brief (2015). 
11. Urrutia-Rojas X., et al. “High blood pressure in school children: prevalence and risk factors”. BMC Pediatrics 6 (2006): 32.
12. Sharma AK., et al. “Prevalence and Severity of High Blood Pressure Among Children Based on the 2017 American Academy of Pediatric Guidelines”. JAMA Pediatrics 172 (2018): 557-565.

Citation

Citation: Tina Cloney. “Overweight and Obesity". Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 4.3 (2020): 40-41.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Tina Cloney. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.