Childhood Obesity Statistics and quick facts:

Weight categories are determined based on some percentiles and are defined as:

-  - Underweight < 5th percentile
-  - Normal 5th to < 85th percentile
-  - At risk of overweight 85th to <95th percentile
-  - Overweight 95th percentile and above

Childhood Obesity and Some facts:

-  - Genetics, behavior, and family environment play a role in childhood overweight.
-  - Childhood overweight increases the risk for certain medical and psychological conditions.
-  - From 1976 to 1980, 5% of children aged 2 to 5 were considered obese. From 2003 to 2006, this number has increased to 12.4%, more than doubling over the span of 30 years.
-  - In the ages 6 to 11 bracket, just 4% of kids were obese from 1971 to 1974. But from 2003 to 2006, this figure has exploded to 17%, more than QUADRUPLING in just 30 years.
-  - For teens, the numbers don’t look much better. From 1976 to 1980, 5% of teens were classified as obese. From 2003 to 2006, this number has sky-rocketed to 17.6% – an over 300% increase.
-  - Overweight children have an increased risk of being overweight as adults.

In 2004, CDC conducted a research about a study that lasted from 1999 to 2002 entitled “Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents: United States”, according to a report, “16 % children (over 9 million) 6-19 year olds are overweight or obese” this is three times what it was in 1980. In addition, this report brings out the fact that also during this same time period an additional 15% were “at risk of becoming overweight”.

This number has not only tripled but just in the past three decades (according to this same study) obesity has “more than doubled” in children and adolescents from ages 2-5 and 12-19 respectively while in children between the ages of 6-11 more than tripling.
Childhood Obesity analysis:

Economic Costs: From 1979-1991, the hospital expenditure for children and youth have increased from 35 million, from 1979-1981 to 127 million.