April 5, 2006 -- Latest Estimates on U.S. Obesity and Overweight

The prevalence of obesity in adults doubled and the prevalence of overweight in children and adolescents tripled in the United States between 1980 and 2002, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported in an article published in today’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) show that 17.1 percent of children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 years were overweight in 2003-2004 and 32.2 percent of adults 20 years of age and older were obese, with 4.8 percent of adults characterized as “extremely obese.” NCHS defines overweight in children and adolescents as at or above the 95th percentile of the sex-specific body mass index (BMI) for age growth charts; and obesity among adults is defined as a BMI of 30 or higher, with extreme obesity defined as a BMI of 40 or higher. BMI was calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters and was rounded to the nearest tenth. Overall, the data show “significant” increases in overweight among children and adolescents and obesity among men in the six years from 1999 to 2004, but no increase in the prevalence of obesity among women. The survey found significant differences by race and ethnicity among children and adolescents, with the prevalence of overweight in Mexican-American and non-Hispanic black girls higher than among non-Hispanic white girls, and the prevalence of overweight significantly higher among Mexican-American boys than among non-Hispanic black or white boys. The corresponding author for the NCHS data can be contacted at Cogden@cdc.gov.