Describe some statistics that you may know about obesity among the youth.

1. More than 1 out of 6 children in the U.S. (aged 6 to 19) is overweight or obese (Ogden & Carroll, 2010). 2. The risk of becoming obese begins earlier in life than previously thought. For instance, a major study of over 7000 U.S. children found that the risk of overweight kindergarteners being obese in the eighth grade was FOUR TO FIVE TIMES that of their thinner classmates (Cunningham, Kramer, & Narayan, 2014). 3. These statistics are even more pronounced for U.S. students who are members of cultural minorities or who come from low socioeconomic status backgrounds (Moreno, Johnson-Shelton, & Boles, 2013), as well as gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth (Austin, Nelson, Birkett, Calzo, & Everett, 2013).