By: MWS at MCC Health Study
Tenfold increase in childhood and adolescent obesity in four decades: New study by Imperial College London and WHO
What are obesity and overweight?
Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.
Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m2).
For adults, WHO defines overweight and obesity as follows:
- overweight is a BMI greater than or equal to 25; and
- obesity is a BMI greater than or equal to 30.BMI provides the most useful population-level measure of overweight and obesity as it is the same for both sexes and for all ages of adults. However, it should be considered a rough guide because it may not correspond to the same degree of fatness in different individuals.Two hundred years ago, the average American ate only 2 pounds of sugar a year. In 1970, we ate 123 pounds of sugar per year. Today, the average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar in one year.
