Overweight in school-age children and adolescents

What does this indicator tell us?

This indicator reflects the percentage of school-age children and adolescents aged 5-19 years who are classified as overweight, based on age- and sex-specific values for body mass index (BMI). Overweight indicates excess body weight for a given height from fat, muscle, bone, water or a combination of these factors, whereas obesity is defined as having excess body fat.

Overweight in school-age children and adolescents aged 5-19 years is included as an intermediate outcome indicator in the core set of indicators for the Global Nutrition Monitoring Framework. It is also included in the NCD global monitoring framework, and in the WHO Global reference list of 100 core health indicators.

How is it defined?

Prevalence of overweight in school-age children and adolescents is defined as the percentage of children aged 5-19 years with sex-specific BMI-for-age >+1 SD above the WHO 2007 reference median.

What are the consequences and implications?

The immediate consequences of overweight and obesity in school-age children and adolescents include greater risk of asthma and cognitive impairment, in addition to the social and economic consequences for the child, its family and the society. In the long term, overweight and obesity in children increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, respiratory disease, mental health, and reproductive disorders later in life. Furthermore, obesity and overweight track over the life course - an overweight adolescent girl is more likely to become an overweight woman and, thus, her baby is likely to have a heavier birth weight.

Source of data

WHO. Global Health Observatory (GHO) data repository. Prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents, BMI > +1 standard deviations above the median, crude. (crude estimate) (%) (Noncommunicable diseases). Estimates by country, among children aged 5-19 years (http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.main.BMIPLUS1C05-19v).

Further reading

NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population-based measurement studies with 128.9 million participants. Lancet. 2017;Dec 16;390(10113):2627-2642. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32129-3.

WHO, UNICEF. Global Nutrition Monitoring Framework: operational guidance for tracking progress in meeting targets for 2025. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017 (http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/operational-guidance-GNMF-indicators/en/).

WHO. Global reference list of 100 core health indicators (plus health-related SDGs). Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018 (https://www.who.int/healthinfo/indicators/2018/en/).

Internet resources

WHO. BMI-for-age (5-19 years). Growth reference 5-19 years. (http://www.who.int/growthref/who2007_bmi_for_age/en/).

WHO. NCD global monitoring framework. (http://www.who.int/nmh/global_monitoring_framework/en/).

WHO. Overweight and obesity. Fact sheet (http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight).

WHO. Commission on ending childhood obesity (http://www.who.int/end-childhood-obesity/en/).

WHO. e-Library of Evidence for Nutrition Actions (eLENA). Interventions by global target. (http://www.who.int/elena/global-targets/en).

Target 7: Halt the rise in diabetes and obesity (http://www.who.int/elena/global-targets/en/#diabetesobesity).