Prevalence of overweight and obesity, 1999-2004.

Title
Prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States, 1999-2004.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association. 295, (13): 1549-1555, 2006.

Prevalence and trends of overweight in children and adolescents and obesity in adults in the US were estimated. Height and wt. measurements from 3958 children and adolescents aged 2-19 yr and 4431 adults aged more than or =20 yr or older were obtained in 2003-2004 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative sample of the US population.

Data from the NHANES obtained in 1999-2000 and in 2001-2002 were compared with data from 2003-2004. Overweight among children and adolescents was defined as at or above the 95th percentile of the sex-specific body mass index (BMI) for age growth charts. Obesity among adults was defined as a BMI of more than or =30, and extreme obesity as a BMI of more than or =40. In 2003-2004, 17.1% of US children and adolescents were overweight and 32.2% of adults were obese. Tests for trend were significant for male and female children and adolescents, indicating an increase in the prevalence of overweight in female children and adolescents from 13.8% in 1999-2000 to 16.0% in 2003-2004 and an increase in the prevalence of overweight in male children and adolescents from 14.0 to 18.2%.

Among men, the prevalence of obesity increased significantly between 1999-2000 (27.5%) and 2003-2004 (31.1%). Among women, no significant increase in obesity was observed between 1999-2000 (33.4%) and 2003-2004 (33.2%). The prevalence of extreme obesity in 2003-2004 was 2.8% in men and 6.9% in women. In 2003-2004, significant differences in obesity prevalence remained by race/ethnicity and by age. Approx. 30% of non-Hispanic white adults were obese as were 45.0% of non-Hispanic black adults and 36.8% of Mexican Americans. Among adults aged 20-39 yr, 28.5% were obese while 36.8% of adults aged 40-59 yer and 31.0% of those aged more than or = 60 yr were obese in 2003-2004.

It is concluded that the prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents and obesity among men increased significantly during the 6-yr period from 1999 to 2004; among women, no overall increases in the prevalence of obesity were observed.