One third of Americans are obese

The American Medical Association says that over 30% of all adults in the USA are classified as obese.

The Body Mass Index of over sixty million adults over the age of twenty is thirty or greater. Add to this a large waist measurement and other high risk factors, millions of adult Americans are in danger of dying because they are too fat. And it’s getting worse.

And children continue to get fatter too. Over nine million children and teenagers between the ages of six and nineteen are overweight. That’s THREE TIMES the amount of overweight children in 1980!

Amongst obese adults, thirty-three per cent are women and twenty-eight per cent are men. Here are the percentages…

Women

• White women (non-Hispanic) – 31 %
• Mexican American women – 38 %
• Black women (non-Hispanic) – 49

Men

Interestingly the percentage of obese men is roughly the same for men of all race and/or ethnic groups – an average of about 28 %.

Children aged 12 to 19

• White children (non-Hispanic) – 14 %
• Black children (non-Hispanic) – 21 %
• Mexican American children – 23 %

Children aged 6 to 11

• White children (non-Hispanic) – 14 %
• Black children (non-Hispanic) – 20 %
• Mexican American children – 22 %

Added risks of obese children

Over and above the children between the ages of six and nineteen that are already obese (sixteen per cent), fifteen per cent more children are at risk of becoming obese.