VITAMINS & MINERALS
Healthy Habits for Back to School
Childhood and teen obesity has leveled out, according to statistics from 2006. But it's not time to celebrate yet—there is work to be done to reverse the trend and help kids become healthier. A new study reports that overweight and obesity rates in kids have not changed since 1999, giving us reason for both optimism and concern.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, included data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which has been conducted in multiple stages by the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since the 1960s. The researchers used health information collected from 2003 to 2006 for 8,165 children and adolescents ages 2 to 19. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated for each child and placed on the percentile graphs for boys and girls established in 2000 by the CDC.
What researchers found when the children weighed in
When the researchers compared these percentages to those from previous surveys, no real change was seen since nearly a decade ago.
Based on data from older surveys, the trend in childhood overweight and obesity was clearly upward from 1980, when only 6.5% of children ages 6 to 11 were obese. By 1994 that number had risen to more than 11%, and by 2002, it had climbed to more than 16%, where it seems to have reached a plateau.
An opportunity to outpace obesity
Healthcare professionals who work with children agree that these rates need to come down before we can breathe a sigh of relief. Said Cynthia Ogden, PhD, the study's lead author and an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics, "It doesn’t mean we’ve solved it, but maybe there is some opportunity for some optimism here."
Ogden CL, Carrol MD, and Flegal KM. "High body mass index for age among US children and adolescents, 2003-2006." JAMA 2008; 299: 2401–5.
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