Записи с меткой: Obesity

New data suggest that we may have turned an important corner in the childhood obesity epidemic.

While rates of obesity and extreme obesity in preschoolers rose from 1998 to 2003, they began to plateau soon thereafter. And childhood obesity rates decreased slightly in 2010.

«We are very encouraged by this data,» says study researcher Heidi M. Blanck, PhD, of the CDC in Atlanta. «It’s pretty exciting and a nice turning of the tide. But we have to stay vigilant or it will go in the other direction.»

Researchers looked at data on 27.5 million children aged 2 to 4 from 1998 to 2010...

The number of low-income preschoolers who qualify as obese or «extremely obese» has dropped over the last decade, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

Although the decline was only «modest» and may not apply to all children, researchers said it was still encouraging.

«It’s extremely important to make sure we’re monitoring obesity in this low-income group,» said the CDC’s Heidi Blanck, who worked on the study.

Those kids are known to be at higher risk of obesity than their well-off peers, in part because access to healthy food is often limited in poorer neighborhoo...