The United States is home to the most obese population in the Americas, Asia and Europe, has the fattest kids by a wide margin and is tops in poor health for teenagers, according to the latest measure of well-being from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In its " How's Life 2015?" report released Tuesday, the United States is also among the nations with underperforming students and second in murders and assaults.

But the U.S. shines when it comes to personal wealth and even the number of rooms in our homes, said the organization that charts the personal and economic health of countries.

The report from the world organization is released every two years and this year it features a focus on child health and welfare in Europe, the Americas and much of Asia, including Japan and South Korea.

The report notes that all nations have room to improve quality of life for its citizens, though it doesn't openly criticize the United States. However, in several graphics and charts, it is clear that the United States doesn't match the world average in several areas besides child health.

For example, the U.S. is a nation of workaholics that doesn't take as much time off as the rest of the world. It also is subpar on life expectancy, adult skills and suffers a higher rate of deaths due to assault than other nations in the report.

But it was the findings on obesity and child health that jumped out in the important report. The key page is shown below.



In the obesity chapter, the United States is put at No. 1, ahead of 33 other nations, despite years of work by the Obama administration, the first lady and the Agriculture Department, which has been pulling sugar and salt out of school lunches.

The report shows that obesity in America has jumped since 2000 and that 35 percent of the nation is overweight. For comparison, 4 percent of Japanese and 25 percent of Canadians are obese.

The U.S. also tops the list of teens report in poor health, at 22 percent.

Worse, the U.S. soars over every other country in the number of obese and overweight children, at a whopping 38 percent. The next worse country is Canada, with a combined obese and overweight child population at below 25 percent.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.