CDC Changes BMI Charts as Childhood Obesity Skyrockets
Bureaucrats making new charts, instead of correcting the policies that created the problems in the first place.
As the rates of childhood obesity skyrocketed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an expansion of the Body Mass Index (BMI) charts used for assessing growth.
Updated growth charts released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now extend to a body mass index of 60 — up from previous charts that stopped at a BMI of 37, with additional categories to track obesity in kids ages 2 to 19.
In recent decades, severe obesity among children in America has nearly quadrupled, experts said.
“We noticed a decade ago that we were kind of outstripping our growth charts,” said Dr. Tom Inge, who directs the weight loss surgery program at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
The CDC charts are the most widely used tool in the U.S. to track growth and development in kids.
Currently, about 4.5 million children (about 6 percent) are severely obese.
The old charts had been used since 2000, and were based on data from US surveys conducted from 1963 to 1994, when far fewer children were obese, let alone severely obese, said CDC epidemiologist Cynthia Ogden.
Growth charts show patterns of development by age, expressed in BMI, a calculation of height and weight, and also in curves called percentiles.
Unlike adults, children are not classified as obese or severely obese based on a strict BMI cutoff.
Instead, kids are described as obese based on percentiles — where they fall compared to other kids their age.
A child is considered obese if they reach the 95th percentile on the growth charts, and severely obese at 120 percent of that mark — or with a BMI of 35 or higher, according to the CDC.
Many people have questions for the CDC, especially as the lockdowns it recommended prevented children from getting outdoor activity and resulted in the use of more electronics that further contributed to this issue.
Is the @CDCgov trying to reverse Childhood Obesity
or normalize it?? pic.twitter.com/5yUpVBZ9wq— Ken D Berry MD (@KenDBerryMD) December 15, 2022
The dietary recommendations have relied too heavily on carbohydrates, and inspiring children and adults to eat insects as a source of protein is not a helpful resolution to this issue.
On a clear August morning in southeastern Pennsylvania, more than a dozen adults and children stood in a park pavilion, listening to mealworms sizzling in a hot pan. They were learning about entomophagy — the human consumption of insects — from Lisa Sanchez, a naturalist with the Lancaster County Department of Parks and Recreation, who has taught the practice for 25 years.
Suddenly, one mealworm sputtered out of the pan. Six-year-old Adaline Welk — without prompting — popped it into her mouth. The crowd cheered for the newly minted entomophagist. “It’s not that bad!” she exclaimed. “It kind of tastes like kettle corn!”
Unfortunately, this trend has serious national security issues.
Nationwide, 11 percent of our 17- to 24-year-olds do not qualify for military service strictly due to excess weight. If you combine this with other eligibility factors such as crime or drug abuse or even academic issues, this shocking ineligibility figure has held steady at 71 percent for years.
However, the Department of Defense’s most recent figures show that an astonishing 77 percent of Americans of prime recruiting age would be ineligible for military service. This is a massive increase. Over three-quarters of American young people are ineligible due to some combination of factors, chief among them obesity.
Ultimately, the CDC bureaucrats did what they do best: Make new charts instead of correcting the policies that created the problems in the first place.
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Comments
For DoD the 77% is primarily obesity but also mental health diagnosis, drug use, criminal convictions and lack of a HS diploma. Not a pretty picture of our future that less than a 1/4 of our military age population can qualify to meet those low thresholds for service.
Put PE back in the schools. One full hour every day mandatory and basic testing using the old Army APFT of push up, sit up and two mile run for an academic grade based on the test results.
When my Eldest was in elementary school (he’s an adult now), Florida passed a state law that required schools to give children a minimum amount of Recess and/or PE activities daily. Our county at the time was at war with the state dept of ed, so the response was to “update” as many school playgrounds as they could manage – which meant kids couldn’t play on them. Those that were functional found “dangers” (there are spiders out there! But somehow pest control wasn’t an option? ) to keep the kids indoors.
I agree with you entirely. Are there schools without mandatory PE? My state requires 3 semesters of PE in high school, but there don’t seem to be any real standards associated with it.
It is odd, but you will find your biggest challenge to changing graduation requirements will be standardized testing. Every single government school totally revolves around it from elementary to high school. I think I had 2 PE periods and a long recess when I was in elementary school. You won’t find that anymore. Gotta prep those kids for standardized tests. It’s crazy, but it is the system.
Which is why I would make it a mandatory class every semester of every year of K-12. Then a mandatory test along the lines of the APFT to include the height/weight standard. Too Fat = fail, score too low on the APFT = fail. As an academic grade and as a graduation requirement.
We had daily PE from 7-12 grade. I still managed to be slow, have poor muscle tone and to run out of breath after 440 yards (we started each session of 7-8 PE running the 660), but never obese.
And thru 6th grade, we ran around twice a day at recess and again after school. Our parents didn’t have to worry about Child Protective Services swooping down on them for letting us play outside unattended.
I’m so conflicted about this. My mind can’t help but go back to my schoolmate Erland Van Lidth De Jeude, a 6’6″ 340 lb. powerhouse who became a professional computer engineer, an opera singer, a supporting Hollywood actor, and an Olympic heavyweight wrestler (talk about a renaissance man). His most well-known claim to fame was as Grossman, the jailbird with the beautiful tenor singing voice, in Gene Wilder’s “Stir Crazy.” But despite his world-class athletic prowess, he did after all die way too early, of heart failure. 😢
Our hearts don’t care too much rather that extra weight is fat or muscle.
What ya gonna take out?
Racial resentment seminars, gender confusion counseling.
Even in the primary grades could free up maybe 10 hours a week.
Well let’s see there are 8 semesters in HS. Call it 6 class periods so 48 class units in HS.
Math (6) – Alg 1, Geometry, Alg 2
Science (6) – Biology, Chem, Physics
English (8)
Hist (6) US Hist, World Hist, Geography, International affairs
Econ (2)
Language (6)
So we have 3 years of math, science, history and foreign language, four years of English and one year of economics. A total of 34 units.
Plenty of room for 8 units of physical education. That’s a total of 42 units. So six units available for electives that could be used for an additional year each of math and science four units. Still leaves two units excess. Maybe use those for basic life skills; how to cook, balance a checkbook, create a budget, file taxes, apply for a loan.
What state do you live in where those are the standards?
I think they sound great and would love them.
Carbohydrates are mostly evil. Some people can tolerate it fairly well, but 99% of obese people are effectively allergic to it.
But damn, the carbs are tasty 🙁
Fats are tasty too, and human digestion is optimized for them. It’s also pretty good with proteins, but handles carbs relatively poorly.
Fats are the main structural component of hormones, nerve tissue, and brain tissue. Long-term lack of fats in the diet can disrupt hormonal balance, degrade the nervous system, exacerbate existing mental health issues and/or trigger new ones.
Modern dietary recommendations are woefully short of fats and dangerously heavy on carbs.
“”the carbs are tasty””
And, like sodium, pervasive in prepared foods. As a diabetic with hypertension, that leaves me with few actual “approved” things to eat, unless I (ugh) feel like cooking something that consists mainly of cauliflower. ends up tasting like cardboard.
Don’t buy things. Understand the basics of what they call “food science” and cook for yourself. Packaged and distributed food is optimized for packaging and distribution. (Look up the history of Iceberg Lettuce, for an example.)
Not to brag; Ok, I’m bragging…
The stuff I cook for myself is way tastier than the stuff one can buy, higher-nutrition, lower-contamination, glycemic n metabolic managed, and way, way cheaper. You need some skills, a kitchen and pantry, BUT you can start out small: A cutting board, one good chef’s knife, and some tupperware, half a cool, dark, shelf, and even one of those horrible, cheap, electric-burner apartment stoves.
To start, learn to scramble eggs, and keep some Onions and Butter around.
I didn’t say I don’t know HOW to cook. I just prefer not to. As far as scrambling eggs, I was cooking eggs a half dozen ways while you were still sucking tit.
Cauliflower;
Cut the Cauli into florettes, around 1′. Toss with olive oil, fresh black pepper, and a touch of salt. Spread sparsely on a cookie tin or sheet pan, n roast at 325+. I prefer 375 or so, tho this oven lies horribly about the actual temperature.
You can include a bit of any herb you like or happen to have hanging around for variety. A dusting of crushed red pepper, cayenne, or hot paprika. Tarragon is interesting with a lot of things, though not often used.
I wouldn’t have a cauliflower in the house.
Stay away from processed foods. You can, with a little effort, create far more health meals at home and fairly inexpensively. Oatmeal, real not the instant flavors packs, is cheap. Boil it, add some butter and cinnamon. Simple. Peppers and onions go a long way to make many things better. Get some garlic, paprika, cumin and a spice blend like Tony Chachere’s. Use celery and leeks, some decent olive oil. Lots of what you might consider upscale dishes aren’t that hard to recreate at home. A couple of good old school cookbooks and you are set.
You obviously didn’t get the part about not cooking. I’ll bet you really like all of those things, and I’m thoroughly familiar and well stocked with all of those things you mention.
I joined a work-based weight-loss program in the late ’80s that was all about fats, fats, fats. “Leave a Saltine cracker on a paper towel for 24 hours and see the ring” sort of propaganda. 20 years later, we learn that Big Carb bribed scientists (Harvard scientists…! Can you believe that??) to blame America’s obesity problems on fats instead of sugars. Thanks to dietitians lying to us, much of older America is now diabetic.
“Something must be done! We lack enough canon fodder to send into the next place we have no business being’”
channeling virtually any neocon.
We should start our own Foreign Legion for those who speak Spanish. We have more of them than anything else.
Canon fodder? Crackers and wine?!
Stan Lee, the fodder of canon.
That was nicely done.
35mm to load the Canon.
It isn’t just diet, obviously. Cell phones and video games are as much the culprits as food.
When I was a kid, video games were something you had to pump quarters into to play. Fun to be sure, but too much expense in the short term with little return. And of course, cellphones didn’t exist yet.
A BB gun, firecrackers, and a fishing rod were the three most important things a kid could have. We walked (and sometimes ran) everywhere around my town and the surrounding woods. We were outdoors having fun from dawn till after sunset.
It’s heartbreaking to see so many kids who’ve been confined at home with nothing but video games and a cellphone.
One of the benefits of all that outdoor activity for my friends and I was a distinct absence of obesity.
When I was a small kid there were no video games. I still remember my friends father buying him Pong when we were in 4th or 5th grade. Of course, I also remember getting our first color tv.
Kids today are just big boned.
Are you serious? It has nothing to do with bones, more like fat asses.
I think that was a joke, Paula. 🙂
Lighten up, Paula. Kids today are as big boned as they were “husky” when I was in grade school.
Ha ha! A few weeks ago I posted that rather than repair a deteriorating territory, progressives would “fix it” by making a new map with prettier colors.
Look! A new BMI chart in prettier colors!
It appears normal kids are now underweight. I think the typical anchor kid is the new normal.
Changing the definition of obesity so as to not hurt feelings. Under all that fat, the lean body mass is probably less from no exercise these days. Don’t worry … having too much food around will end and “thin will be in”… think Holodomor Thin.
First-world problem.
Not strictly.
2014, The Atlantic:
“The Lancet on Thursday found that one-third of the world’s population is now overweight or obese, and 62 percent of these individuals live in developing countries.”
The Guardian:
“Almost twice as many obese people in poor countries than in rich ones as fat and sugar consumption rises”
Doing the math, a full 20% of the world’s population are fat third-worlders.
Some of this comment section is about how to get the government schools, which have failed at everything else, to help solve the obesity problem.
Need a reality check? Look at some video footage of attendees at the 1964-5 World’s Fair. Compare that with present day footage of visitors to Disneyland.