Severe Obesity Is Increasing in Young U.S. Children

A new study adds to evidence that severe obesity is becoming more common in young U.S. children. There was some hope that children in a government food program might be bucking a trend in obesity rates — earlier research found rates were dropping a little about a decade ago for those kids. But an update released Monday in the journal Pediatrics the rate bounced back up a bit by 2020. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The increase echoes other national data, which suggests around 2.5% of all preschool-aged children were severely obese during the same period. “We were doing well and now we see this upward trend,” said one of the study’s authors, Heidi Blanck of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We are dismayed at seeing these findings.” The study looked at children ages 2 to 4 enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children program, which provides healthy foods and other services to preschool-aged children in low-income families. The children were weighed and measured. The researchers found that 2.1% of kids in the program were severely obese in 2010. Six years later, the rate had dipped to 1.8%. But by 2020, it was 2%. That translates to about 33,000 of more than 1.6 million kids in the WIC program. Significant increases were seen in 20 states with the highest rate in California at 2.8%. There also were notable rises in some racial and ethnic groups. The highest rate, about 2.8%, was in Hisp...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized wire Source Type: news