According to the NHANES data, African American and Mexican American adolescents between 12 and 19 years old are more likely to be overweight than non-Hispanic White adolescents. The prevalence is 21%, 23% and 14% respectively. Also, in a national survey of American Indian children 5–18 years old, 39 percent were found to be overweight or at risk for being overweight.[27]
Looking at the long-term consequences, overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults, which increases to 80 percent if one or more parent is overweight or obese. In 2000, the total cost of obesity for children and adults in the United States was estimated to be $117 billion ($61 billion in direct medical costs).
Food consumption has increased with time. For example, annual per capita consumption of cheese was 4 pounds (1.8 kg) in 1909; 32 pounds (15 kg) in 2000; the average person consumed 389 grams of carbohydrates daily in 1970; 490 in 2000; 41 pounds (19 kg) of fats and oils in 1909; 79 pounds (36 kg) in 2000. In 1977, 18% of an average person's food was consumed outside the home; in 1996, this had risen to 32%.[28]
There has been an increase in obesity-related medical problems, including type II diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and disability.[29] In particular, diabetes has become the seventh leading cause of death in the United States,[30] with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimating in 2008 that fifty-seven million adults aged twenty and older were pre-diabetic, 23.6 million diabetic, with 90–95% of the latter being type 2-diabetic.[31] Obesity has also been shown to increase the prevalence of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Babies born to obese women are almost three times as likely to die within one month of birth and almost twice as likely to be stillborn than babies born to women of normal weight.[32]
Obesity has been cited as a contributing factor to approximately 100,000–400,000 deaths in the United States per year[12] and has increased health care use and expenditures,[29][33][34][35] costing society an estimated $117 billion in direct (preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services related to weight) and indirect (absenteeism, loss of future earnings due to premature death) costs.[36] This exceeds health-care costs associated with smoking or problem drinking[35] and accounts for 6% to 12% of national health care expenditures in the United States.[37]
The Medicare and Medicaid programs bear about half of this cost.[35] Annual hospital costs for treating obesity-related diseases in children rose threefold, from $35 million to $127 million, in the period from 1979 to 1999,[38] and the inpatient and ambulatory healthcare costs increased drastically by $395 per person per year.[34] These trends in healthcare costs associated with pediatric obesity and its comorbidities are staggering, urging the surgeon general to predict that preventable morbidity and mortality associated with obesity may surpass those associated with cigarette smoking.[33][39] Furthermore, the probability of childhood obesity persisting into adulthood is estimated to increase from approximately twenty percent at four years of age to approximately eighty percent by adolescence,[40] and it is likely that these obesity comorbidities will persist into adulthood.[41]
Under pressure from parents and anti-obesity advocates, many school districts moved to ban sodas, junk foods, and candy from vending machines and cafeterias.[42] State legislators in California, for example, passed laws banning the sale of machine-dispensed snacks and drinks in elementary schools in 2003, despite objections by the California-Nevada Soft Drink Association. The state followed more recently with legislation to prohibit their soda sales in high schools starting July 1, 2009, with the shortfall in school revenue to be compensated by an increase in funding for school lunch programs.[43] A similar law passed by the Connecticut General Assembly in June 2005 was vetoed by