One in 20 American kids is extremely obese

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http://grist.org/news/one-in-20-american-kids-is-extremely-obese/


The proportion of American kids suffering from obesity has more than doubled since 1980, but obesity rates appear to have plateaued recently and maybe even started to decline.

The saddest and most troubling category of overweight American child, however, continues to expand: the extremely obese.

There’s no hard-and-fast definition for “extreme obesity.” But in a paper published Monday by the American Heart Association in the journal Circulation, researchers propose a standard measure — and warn that one out of every 20 American kids meets it.


(The proposed definition is a technical mouthful, but we’ll quote it for those with an interest in such things: “Having a [body mass index] ≥120% of the 95th percentile or an absolute BMI ≥35 kg/m2, whichever is lower based on age and sex.”)