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Obesity

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Pediatric Endocrinology

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Abstract

Obesity is the most prevalent nutritional disorder of children in the USA, a remarkable change from the prominent place of malnutrition due to deficient caloric intake in childhood in the past. The US Surgeon Generals have designated childhood obesity as an epidemic in the USA; obesity probably qualifies as the first epidemic of chronic disease. There was a threefold increase in the prevalence of a body mass index (BMI) greater than the 95th percentile for age and gender in children aged 6–11 years between the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) II (1976–1980) and 2004. At ages 2–19, the prevalence is about 18.5% or about 13.7 million children and adolescents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA

    Dennis M. Styne

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  1. Dennis M. Styne
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Correspondence to Dennis M. Styne .

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Styne, D.M. (2023). Obesity. In: Pediatric Endocrinology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09512-2_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09512-2_13

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-09512-2

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