Globally, the number of obese children and adolescents has risen sharply since 1975, according to a study in The Lancet. The study examined data on the height and weight from 200 countries and nearly 130 million people. Of the total, about 32 million were age 5 to 19.
Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI), or weight-to-height ratio, of 30 or greater. By that measure, the total number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016.
Independent of expanding world population, the global average percentage of children and adolescents who were obese, corrected for age, increased by a factor of 8 in girls and 8.7 in boys. The prevalence was lowest in Asia and East Africa, and highest in Polynesia and Micronesia.