It’s no secret that the U.S. is one of the fattest nations in the world: 66.3 percent of Americans over 20 years old are overweight or obese (about 140 million); 32 percent are obese (67 million); and almost 5 percent (9 million) are morbidly obese. Among adolescents 12 to 19 years old, over 17 percent are overweight (over 12.5 million) 16 percent are girls and 18.2 percent are boys. But what exactly do the terms “overweight,” “obese,” and “morbidly obese” mean, and why should these distinctions matter to you?
The standard definitions as used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) (and most social science and medical journals that rely on the data from those organizations) are based on body mass index (BMI) levels. This is a calculation using your height and your weight. Continued…
