The weird, wild world of childhood obesity statistics. 18 November 2009 5:48 pm
Posted by Tracy in : geekery,health,health at every size,news,politics,school,society,weird,whoops , 1 comment so farSo I knew I was going to have trouble with the reading for next week’s Food Sociology class when on the very first page I read the statement:
“We suffer from widespread obesity, particularly among children…”
Karl Weber, preface to Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food Is Making us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer — And What You Can Do About It (New York: Public Affairs, 2009).
Oh, really? Last time I checked, I thought rates were way higher in adults than in kids…. oh, sure enough. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, “Results from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and weights, indicate that an estimated 32.7 percent of U.S. adults 20 years and older are overweight, 34.3 percent are obese and 5.9 percent are extremely obese….” That’s with your standard BMI >24.9 kg/m2 for overweight, BMI > 30 kg/m2 for obese, and BMI > 40 kg/m2 for extremely obese, and it’s a grand total of 72.9 percent of the adult population weighing in (har, har) as overweight or obese. Compare that to the CDC on childhood overweight and obesity, which says, “The most recent NHANES data (2003–2006) showed that for children aged 6 –11 years and 12–19 years, the prevalence of overweight (BMI ≥85th percentile) was 33.3% and 34.1% respectively.”
Holy cats! Adulthood makes you fat!
Ok, but seriously. First of all, at first glance those kid numbers don’t look nearly as bad as the numbers for adults. But wait — how the hell can 33.3% or 34.1% of a population be at or above the 85th BMI percentile? What in the name of monkeys does that even mean? (more…)
