Obesity is an epidemic in the United States that has risen steadily over the last 30 years. Obesity effects all populations in the US, from young and old to people with disabilities. . For children and adolescents age 2 to 19 years, obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile of the sex-specific CDC BMI-for-age growth charts. For children and adolescents aged 2-19 years, the prevalence of obesity has remained fairly stable at about 17% and affects about 12.7 million children and adolescents for the past decade. On the other hand, more than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese. This statistic is very startling because obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death. This is a very important topic to me because …show more content…
She spoke about a specific population that is effected by obesity. I learned that compared with the general population, adults (≥18 years) with intellectual disability had a higher prevalence of obesity (38.3% vs. 28%) and morbid obesity (7.4% vs. 4.2%). While obesity prevalence in the USA is high among all populations, the prevalence of obesity among adults with intellectual disabilities was substantially higher compared with population. In the 18 to 39 year old age group, obesity rates were 54% higher; in the 40 to 59 year old group, rates were 34% higher; and in the over 60-age cohort, rates were 26% higher. One striking finding was the rate of morbid obesity (BMI ≥ 40), among a younger population of adults with intellectual disability (i.e. 18 to 39 years), rates of morbid obesity were almost twice that reported in the general