Facts About Childhood Obesity

The development of youth fitness guidelines and training is timely and important because of the overwhelming number of youth who are not able to maintain a healthy body weight.  Unfortunately, a record number of children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese.  Data from the Nation Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted from 2007 to 2008 indicates that 19.6% of children and 18.1% of adolescents were obese.  These numbers are staggering in relation to the 4% and 6.1% of children and adolescents, respectively, who were obese in 1971 to 1974 data set.  A recent study by Ogden et al. estimates that 37% of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight or obese (National Academy of Sports Medicine, NASM).