Are there important differences in rates of overweight in racial and ethnic groups?
Dr. Thompson: Yes, there are. It’s been seen in the last few NHANES surveys that rates of obesity—and I’m talking about adults, for the moment—are higher among African American women compared with Caucasian women. That doesn’t seem to be the case for men. So yes, African American women seem to have the highest rates of obesity, but there’s not really a difference between African American and Caucasian men. Then before you did this analysis, what did we know about racial and ethnic differences in rates of overweight in children? Dr. Thompson: Many studies have also shown that African American girls have higher rates of overweight than Caucasian girls. I’m not as familiar with differences by race among boys just because in the NGHS and the data that I’ve worked with, the focus has been on girls, and the focus has been on girls because of the racial differences that were found in women. Could you explain the NGHS? What you were trying to determine from it, and who was included? Dr. Thomps
