Text Childhood Obesity Definitions: BMI And Growth Charts

Cynthia Ogden, Ph.D.

Over a more than 2-decade career in the NHANES group at CDC, Dr. Ogden has become an internationally recognized expert in nutritional and obesity epidemiology. She was a member of the team that developed the 2000 CDC pediatric growth charts that are used to define obesity in US children and led the development of the CDC Extended BMI-for-age growth charts. She has published more than 175 papers, government documents and book chapters on topics in nutrition, diet, obesity, growth, and physical activity. For 4 years, Cynthia was an associate editor for Obesity, the journal of The Obesity Society. Cynthia joined CDC as an EIS Officer after a post-doctoral year in the Nutrition Division at the New York State Department of Health. She has worked on nutrition related projects for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and currently is an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, advising students and teaching courses on nutritional and obesity epidemiology. Cynthia earned her Ph.D. and Master’s degrees from Cornell University where her research focused on socio-economic contributions to malnutrition among young children in Kigali, Rwanda.

Video Lecture

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Lecture Slides

Defining Childhood obesity: BMI and growth charts