By Emma Patten-Hitt

ATLANTA, Mar 12 (Reuters Health) - Much like the rest of the US population, more children and adolescents are now overweight compared with just a few years ago, according to data released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.

An estimated 13% of children aged 6 to 11 years and 14% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 years are now overweight, according to the new data from a 1999 nutrition survey. This represents a 2% to 3% increase over the overweight estimates obtained from an earlier survey, which ended in 1994, according to the CDC.

"It is striking--a phenomenal event to have this type of increase going on year after year in this country," Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, director of the CDC, told Reuters Health at a press conference. "It meets all the criteria for an epidemic," he said.

After remaining stable between the 1960s and 1980s, the percent of overweight children nearly doubled between 1980 and 1994.

Data for adults from the same survey indicate that an estimated 61% of US adults are now either overweight or obese--approximately 5% higher than the estimates obtained from the survey ending in 1994.

"The data for adolescents are of notable concern because overweight adolescents are at increased risk to become overweight adults," according to a CDC statement. These findings "suggest the likelihood of another generation of overweight adults who may be at risk for subsequent overweight and obesity-related health conditions."

"Obesity is caused by a variety of environmental and behavioral factors, so it is not an easy thing to change," Koplan explained. "But this was also said about tobacco use, and we have dropped the rate of smoking in this country by half in a couple of decades--if we have the willpower as a nation, we can do the same here," he said.

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