Montague Mamie C
Division of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Health Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA.
ABNF J. 2003 May-Jun;14(3):56-60.
Overweight and obesity have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. More than 61 percent of Americans aged 20 years and older are overweight and one-fourth of American adults are obese (an estimated 97 million), putting them at serious risk for poor health (DHHS, 2001). Yet, trends show that obesity continues to increase at alarming rates in men and women in most population groups. Among children six to seventeen years old, there seems to be an "obesity" crisis. Since 1980, the number of overweight children has doubled, and the number of overweight adolescents has tripled. In addition to being a major health hazard, obesity is associated with approximately 300,000 deaths a year in this country (DHHS, 2001; Kucz-Marski, R., Flegal, Campbell, & Johnson, 1994).
超重和肥胖在美国已达到流行程度。20岁及以上的美国人中，超过61%超重，四分之一的美国成年人肥胖（估计有9700万），这使他们面临健康状况不佳的严重风险（美国卫生与公众服务部，2001年）。然而，趋势表明，大多数人群中男性和女性的肥胖率仍在以惊人的速度持续上升。在6至17岁的儿童中，似乎存在一场“肥胖”危机。自1980年以来，超重儿童的数量翻了一番，超重青少年的数量增加了两倍。除了是一种主要的健康危害外，肥胖在该国每年还导致约30万人死亡（美国卫生与公众服务部，2001年；库茨 - 马尔斯基，R.，弗莱格尔，坎贝尔，& 约翰逊，1994年）。
