Define Prevalence of Weight Management?
WHO (1998) estimates that in developing countries about 245 million adults are moderately underweight and 93 million severely underweight. At the same time, there are over 200 million adults worldwide who are moderately or severely overweight, of whom 58 million are in developing countries. Overall it appears that in any country - developed or developing -prevalence of malnutrition (underweight and overweight) is about 50%. The WHO report states that the growth in the number of severely overweight adults is expected to double that of underweight adults during 1995-2025. Now, let us have a look at the situation in developed countries.
As per the report of National health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002, currently 64.5% of U.S. adults age 20 years and older are overweight and 30.5% are obese. These figures stood at 46.0% and 14.4%, respectively during 1976-1980 implying [hereby that there has been a consistent increase in prevalence of obesity. The increase in prevalence of obesity among children also is a cause of great concern. Estimating true prevalence is difficult because of the lack of agreement of different bodies in defining obesity in children and adolescents. However, data from 79 developing countries and a number of industrialized countries suggests that, by WHO standards, about 22 million children under 5 years old are overweight worldwide (WHO, 1998). In the USA, the percentage of overweight children (aged 5-14 years) has risen from 15% to 32% during the last 30 years.