The ultimate cost of obesity is a drastically reduced quality of life and a shorter life span.²⁴ Being overweight or obese puts children at risk for an array of associated health problems:

• Obesity increases the lifelong risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, stroke, certain kinds of cancer and many other debilitating diseases.²⁵
   
• Researchers estimate that one out of every three males and two out of every five females born in the United States in the year 2000 will be diagnosed with diabetes.²⁶
   
• More than 100,000 children ages 5 to 14 suffer from asthma each year because of overweight and obesity.²⁷
   
• Researchers predict that if current adolescent obesity rates continue, by 2035 there will be more than 100,000 additional cases of coronary heart disease attributable to obesity.²⁸
   

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