Healthy Eating Statistics - America's Obesity CrisisThe numbers speak for themselves – we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Below you will find some alarming healthy eating statistics, categorized by general health statistics, fast food statistics, and childhood obesity statistics. Click on the links or scroll down to see some of these statistics!
• According to the American Heart Association and World Health Organization, you shouldn’t consume more than 7% of your total calories from saturated fat. • Top nutritionists at Harvard have concluded that trans fat could be responsible for an many as 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year! • The American Heart Association recommends limiting the amount of trans fats you eat to less than 1% of your total daily calories, which is less than 2 grams per day for a 2,000 calorie diet. • Swapping “white” carbs for whole grains may lower your risk for heart disease by 33% • The Institute of Medicine recommends that adults get a minimum of 0.4 grams of protein for every pound of body weight per day. • In a National Institutes of Health study, men and women with pre-hypertension who reduced their sodium intake by 25 to 35% had a 25% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease over the 10 to 15 years after they reduced their sodium intake. • The average American drinks 526 12-oz sodas per year … that’s 1.5 cans each day. Swap those empty calories for water and you’ll cut out over 6,000 calories per month … which amounts to 21 pounds of weight loss in a year! • By eating at least 5 servings of vegetables and fruits a day, you can reduce your risk of stroke and heart disease by 30%, lose weight, and enhance your immune system so you don’t get sick as often! • According to the World Watch Institute, a typical Sunday meal in a mid-western U.S. state consisting of beef, potatoes and vegetables travels an average of 1,600 miles! • Men and women do an hour of cardio per day for an entire year, they only lose 4-6 pounds on average, according to the journal Obesity • People on average end up overeating by over 250 calories per day when they start a cardio program and end up GAINING weight, according to the International Journal of Obesity • People who do the four things below live on average an additional 14 years compared with people who adopt none of these behaviors, according to a study published in the journal PLoS Medicine from the Public Library of Science: 1. Don't smoke • Americans are now spending over $140 billion on fast food each year • There are now over 25,000 fast food chains in the U.S. (an increase of more than 1,000% since 1970) • Fast food restaurants spent $294 million on marketing messages aimed at children in 2007 • A cheeseburger happy meal with fries and a Sprite at McDonalds has 640 calories and 24 grams of fat. This is over half of the total calories many children should be eating in a day! • The average serving size for burgers, fries, and sodas has more than tripled since the 1970’s! • Diet and exercise outweigh genetics when it comes to being obese. Swedish scientists reporting in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that the FTO gene, which previous studies have linked to weight gain, will only increase your risk of obesity if you also lead a sedentary lifestyle • More than one third of U.S. adults—more than 72 million people—and 16% of U.S. children are obese • 2/3 of Americans are now either overweight or obese! • Since 1980, obesity rates for adults have doubled and rates for children have tripled • 35% of adult women and 40% of adults aged 40-59 are obese! • If trends continue at the current rate, 100% of Americans will be overweight or obese by the year 2048 • Among Americans age 20 and older, 142 million are overweight or obese • Of these 142 million overweight or obese people, 67 million are obese • From 1960 to 2004, the prevalence of overweight increased from 44.8% to 66% in U.S. adults age 20 to 74 • From 1960 to 2004, the prevalence of obesity increased from 13.3% to 32.1% in U.S. adults age 20 to 74, with most of this rise occurring since 1980 • 30% of children aged 2-19 are considered overweight or obese and it has been estimated than 1 in 3 children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime! • Over the past three decades the childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and adolescents aged 12-19 years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years • Overweight adolescents have a 70% chance of becoming overweight or obese adults (this increases to 80% if one or more parent is overweight or obese) • 13.9 percent of children two to five years of age, 18.8 percent of children six to 11 years of age, and 17.4 percent of adolescents 12 to 19 years of age in America are obese • Among infants and children between 6 and 23 months, the prevalence of obesity rose from 7.2% in 1976-1980 to 11.5% in 2003-2004 • Nearly 14% of children between the ages of 2 and 5 were overweight in 2003-2004, up from 10.3% in 1999-2000 • Children who are considered overweight have a 70% chance of becoming overweight adults • Among overweight children and teens between the ages of 2 and 19 (or their parents), 36.7% reported ever having been told by a doctor or HCP that they were overweight • Being obese increases a child's risk for some serious childhood medical problems, including: • Obese children are more than twice as likely to have diabetes as non-obese children • An as-yet-unpublished study led by Dr Geetha Raghueveer, from the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine, was presented at the recent American Heart Association conference in New Orleans. The researchers found that the artery walls of obese children and teens, or those who have high cholesterol, are as thick as artery walls in the average 45-year-old • With children, measuring BMI and taking action if it's too high can actually help prevent heart disease from developing • "The prevalence of overweight among adolescents in the United States has nearly tripled in the past two decades… Type 2 diabetes, previously considered an adult disease, has increased dramatically in children and adolescents. Overweight and obesity are closely linked to type 2 diabetes." • "During the mid-1990s, type 2 diabetes in youth increased ten-fold in the US, and mirrored the childhood obesity epidemic." • In children who are overweight, between 25 percent and 40 percent will have the metabolic syndrome that sets the stage for diabetes and heart problems Sources (if not cited above): http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/
|
