We Like to Move: Exercise Is Fun

The statistics are shocking! Obesity has become an epidemic in the United States. Not only are American adults suffering the consequences of significant overweight, but massive numbers of our children are quickly joining the ranks of the overfed and undernourished! According to the latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), an estimated 16 percent of children and adolescents ages 6-19 years are seriously overweight, and this percentage is growing rapidly in younger children as well. This figure represents a 45 percent increase from the overweight estimates obtained from the same survey done for 1988-94. The National Institute for Health has made obesity-intervention one of its primary targets for increasing the health and longevity of all Americans by 2010. Without a turn-around, however, succeeding generations of children will suffer increased heart disease and diabetes and will, overall, be less healthy than their parents.