An estimated 1 million 12–19 year old US adolescents have MetS or 4.2 % overall (6.1 % of males; 2.1 % of females).

Of adolescents with MetS, 73.9 % were overweight and 25.2 % were at risk of overweight.
The mean BMI of adolescents with the MetS (30.1 %) was just above the 95th percentile of the CDC Growth Chart; thus Mets is clinically common.
— MetS was present in 28.7 % of overweight adolescents compared with 6.8 % at-risk of overweight adolescents.
— Among adolescents with MetS, 40.9 % had 1 criterion; 14.2 % had 2 criteria; 4.2 % had 3 criteria and 0.9 % had 4 criteria for MetS.
Using a sample of adolescents from NHANES III, the overall prevalence of the MetS in moderately obese subjects was 38.7 % and 49.7 % in severely obese subjects. The prevalence of the MetS in severely obese black subjects was 39 %.