Making physical activity programs work for american indian/alaska native youth at risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

摘要

One of the major public health problems in the United States today is the increase in rates of overweight (BMI [body mass index] > 85 percentile) and obesity (BMI > 95 percentile) among youth and adults. Studies of children indicate that for the period 2003 to 2006,31.9% of children and adolescents, aged 2 to 19 years, all races, were above the 85 percentile BMI level of the 2000 BMI-for-age growth charts.1 In its report to Congress in 2005, the Government Accounting Office identified childhood obesity as a national epidemic.2 The report also noted that obesity-associated hospital costs for children have increased more than 3-fold, from dollar35 million to dollar127 million over the past 30 years.