Obesity
...in the United States of America, but all across the globe. Look around you; obesity is noticeable everywhere. (Warthtman, J., 2004) With obesity almost reaching epidemic proportions in the United States, and on the threshold of a global epidemic, we must watch this alarming increase carefully (Hill, J.O., & Peters, J.C., 1998) and begin to take actions to stop this phenomenon immediately; otherwise obesity will lead to mortality rates never before imagined in the human race. Interestingly, there are more overweight people than hungry people in the world today. According to the latest statistics from the world health organization, in 2005, of the world’s 6.5 billion people, about 1.6 billion adults were overweight (400 million obese) while about 850million were hungry. While this phenomenon may come as a welcome relief and far cry from the usual world hunger images of the recent past, the prevalence of obesity continues to be a health concern for adults, children and adolescents in the United States (Centers for Disease Control. July, 2008)
Definitions
Obesity and overweight are defined as an abnormal state of storing excessive body fat to the extent that it may impair health (World Health Organization. September, 2006).
Body mass index (BMI) is a formula used by medical experts to calculate the percentage of body fat in relation to height, to determine nutritional status. BMI approximates a mathematical ratio of height and weight [kg/m2 (or lbs/inches2 *704.5)]. The standards used for men and women are the same. BMI ratio are interpreted as follow: (a) BMI of 16 or less denotes severe starvation, (b) BMI of 16-20 denotes moderate starvation, (c) BMI of 18-20 denotes mild starvation, (d) BMI of 20-25 is considered normal, (e) BMI of 25-30 is considered overweight,
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BMI Height (in)
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