"The Childhood Obesity Prevalence Rate in Korea"
Like adult, the obesity prevalence rate for child and adolescent tends to increase all over the world. In 1995, WHO(World Health Organization) announced that childhood obesity is defined as one of International Disease Categories and it should be treated aggressively. It is reported that if people were overweight or obese when they were children or adolescents, about 80% of them are becoming obese when they grow up, and this child obesity leads early chronic diseases high blood pressure, type II diabetes, hyperlipidemia, arteriosclerosis, fatty liver, cholelithiasis, etc.
It is reported that the childhood obesity prevalence rate in U.S. is around 14 to 17%. In Korea, because of Korean economy development and wide-spread westernized diet, child obesity cholelithiasis and its complications are becoming a serious problem.In the National Health Nutrition Research in 2001, it was reported that the childhood obesity prevalence rate of boy was highest in the age of 17(22.3), and and the rate of girl was highest in the age of 12(19.0%) and especially,the total rate of age 10 to 17 had increased greatly comparing to the result of 1998.