Childhood Obesity Facts and Figures are Alarming!

If the overall facts about obesity weren't alarming enough, the childhood obesity facts should more than scare you into action! You by now already understand how bad being an obese person can be. You should also have a simple understanding of what an obese child is. If not, please click here to get a quick understanding of how to determine if your child is overweight or not. Knowing this will either put your mind at ease, or possibly throw you into a serious panic attack!

Take a deep breath, and read on. You should be sitting down before you read these statistics on obesity in children. Here we go:

16% of children ages 6-19 are overweight or obese (that's over 9 million!)

In 1980, the number of overweight children hovered around 5%

Overweight children have a 70% chance of being overweight as an adult.

Approximately $127 million was spent on overweight and obese children annually in 1999.

Children born in 2000 have a 30% chance of acquiring Type II Diabetes over their lifetime. That number was less than 4% in 1990!

60% of obese children ages 5-10 years old have at least one risk factor for heart disease. 25% had two or more risk factors! (That's really, really bad)

The United Kingdom Department of Health estimates that by 2050, 9 out of 10 adults in England will be overweight or obese! Statistics are even worse for the US (100% in children by 2044 and 100% in adults by 2058- if the trends continue).

Research on obesity shows that obese children may die 5 years younger than their simply overweight counterparts.

According to the World Health Organization, over 20 million children under the age of 5 years old are already overweight!