High Body Mass Index for Age Among US Children and Adolescents, 2003-2006
Posted on 05/27/2008 10:07:42 PM PDT by neverdem
Childhood obesity, rising for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau, a potentially significant milestone in the battle against excessive weight gain among children.
But the finding, based on survey data gathered from 1999 to 2006 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in Wednesday’s issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, was greeted with guarded optimism.
It is not clear if the lull in childhood weight gain is permanent or even if it is the result of public anti-obesity efforts to limit junk food and increase physical activity in schools. Doctors noted that even if the trend held up, 32 percent of American schoolchildren remained overweight or obese, representing an entire generation that will be saddled with weight-related health problems as it ages.
“After 25 years of extraordinarily bad news about childhood obesity, this study provides a glimmer of hope,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the childhood obesity program at Children’s Hospital in Boston. “But it’s much too soon to know whether this is a true plateau in prevalence or just a temporary lull.”
The data come from thousands of children who have taken part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys — compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics at the C.D.C. since the 1960s — and represent some of the most reliable statistics available on the health of American children.
The most recent data is based on two surveys — one in 2003 to 2004 and one in 2005 to 2006 — that included 8,165 children ages 2 to 19. In that group, about 16 percent of children and teenagers were obese, which is defined as having a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile on United States growth charts. For example...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Body Mass Index is crap! Yes change the equation and you can get any statistic. Keep in mind that since the change to BMI, the President of the United States is considered overweight. Back in the day, he never would be considered overweight. Ridiculous, but good for those in the faux BMI business I suppose.
This is so much BS, I drive thru Mexico every day and see these kids walking around the block. I drive thru one of the last bastions of America in California and see 30 girls or 30 boys running 3 miles and loving it.
In Reseda, Mexico where I live you won’t find kids riding bicycles, riding skateboards, or bouncing a basketball. You won’t see a motor home unless it is lived in. you won’t see a boat or jetski. Mexican’s just plain don’t do physical activities. When we talk about childhood obesity, we are talking about Mexicans.
As for President Bush, I would think he would score reasonably well in a BMI. I doubt that BMI would show him as obese.
The fact is most people do not like the BMI because it does not flatter their own overrated physique.
I’m assistant coaching a Little League team. There are way too many kids out there who are so overweight they can’t run without great effort. It’s a very unhealthy start to life.
If childhood obesity is hitting a plateau perhaps it is because the number of homeschoolers is growing and improving the average.
I struggled with weight most of my adult life and it sucked being in my 20s and 30s and getting winded just climbing a flight of stairs and being too tired to even play catch with my kids. I finally got into a healthy routine about 5 years ago and took off a hundred pounds (documented here during the 2003-2004 period) but all those unhealthy years I'll never get back. When I was 25, I felt like I was 45 and now that I'm 45, I feel like I'm 25. But when I was a kid, I was rail thin. I think that's the only reason I've been able to take it off and keep it off for the most part. For those who were never thin to begin with, they have a much harder road.
Congratulations to you. You deserve a lot of credit. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.
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