health

The percentage of overweight and obese children in North America has
tripled since the mid-1970s. In 1976 the percentage of children (defined
as youngsters between the ages of six and eleven) defined as obese was
7 percent, and the percentage of obese adolescents (ages twelve to nineteen)
was 5 percent. By 1988 11 percent of young people in both age
groups were obese, and by 2000 the percentages were 15.3 percent for
children and 15.5 percent for adolescents. Those figures mean that one
American child in every six is obese.
Childhood obesity appears to be more common in girls than in boys,
but is more obvious in boys because fat in boys tends to accumulate on
the chest and stomach rather than being more widely distributed to other
parts of the body.
Childhood obesity is more common in African American, Hispanic,
and Native American children than in Asian or Caucasian children.
It is also more common in children from families with lower
family incomes.