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Tuesday, Apr. 28, 2026

Are 50% of teens in America obese, as Rep. Brecheen claimed?

Matthew Yim, Oklahoma Watch
no

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 22.9% of adolescents ages 12-19 are obese, or have a higher weight-to-height ratio than what is considered normal. 

Children and adolescents with BMIs, which do not directly measure fat, greater than or equal to the 95th percentile are considered obese. 40.3% of adults are considered obese, with BMIs of 30 or more. 

Discussing his Healthy SNAP Act, Rep. Josh Breechen cited an estimation of federal funding costs for obesity and obesity-related diseases. 

Obesity is just one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and a complex one at that; equally obese individuals can have substantially different cardiometabolic risks and states of health. 

Evidence indicates that markers such as visceral adiposity and liver fat are more important than mere obesity in determining cardiometabolic risks associated with obesity, rather than BMI, which has dubious origins in 19th-century statistics rather than medicine and fails to account for individual body differences. 

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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