ABSTRACT
Even more disturbing is the fact that the prevalence of overweight and obesity increased even more dramatically in other ethnic groups, such as AfricanAmerican children. Though in most cases African-American children had a lower prevalence of overweight and obesity than white children in the 1963-1970 time period, that has changed in the most recent survey. Over the 1963-1991 time period, the prevalence of 6-to 17-year-old African-American children with a
TABLE 1 Prevalence of Overweight (>85th percentile BMI) and Obesity (>95th percentile BMI) in Children and Adolescents (%)
>85th percentile >95th percentile
Age, years White Black White Black
Boys 6-11 1963-70 16.0 10.3 5.6 2.0 1971-74 19.5 12.3 6.7 5.6 1976-80 20.8 15.1 7.9 7.9 1988-97 22.3 27.2 10.4 13.4
Girls 6-11 1963-70 15.7 12.1 5.1 5.3 1971-74 13.4 16.8 4.5 3.5 1976-80 15.4 18.4 6.4 11.3 1988-97 22.0 30.7 10.2 16.2
Boys 12-17 1963-70 15.8 10.4 5.4 3.7 1971-74 15.3 12.3 5.5 4.3 1976-80 16.6 14.5 5.4 6.3 1988-97 22.6 23.3 14.4 9.4
Girls 12-17 1963-70 15.0 16.6 5.0 6.6 1971-74 19.7 20.8 6.6 12.2 1976-80 15.6 18.2 5.3 10.4 1988-97 20.3 29.9 8.4 14.4
BMI greater than the 85th percentile increased 81 to 164%, while the prevalence of BMI greater than the 95th percentile increased 118 to 570% over this period. Thus, the greatest increases in the prevalence of obesity were in minority groups and in the proportion of children who were more severely overweight.
