What has happened to the rate of obesity in children and teens in the U.S. in recent years?
National childhood obesity rates rose from the 1970s into the early 2000s and have grown much more slowly since then. We recently spoke with Diane Schazenbach, director of the Plant for Policy Research at Northwestern Academy, most new research she and colleagues published using various federal data sets to examine some of the long-term trends in obesity rates. Beneath is a cursory interview nearly the enquiry.
In the large picture, what does your enquiry show about how obesity rates have changed over the terminal few decades?
Overall, the charge per unit of childhood obesity has more than than tripled over the last four decades—rising from 5 percentage in 1978 to 18.5 percent in 2016. Of form, that is an alarming trend! In response, resources have poured into addressing babyhood obesity, through public health efforts, reforms to school policies and nutrition assist programs, and more. What we find is that there is a sharp intermission in trend—a leveling off—starting in 2003. These days, the prevalence of babyhood obesity is still rising, only at a much slower charge per unit than it used to.
To put this in concrete terms, from 1978 to 2003, the childhood obesity charge per unit grew by most i percentage point every 2 and a half years. Since 2003, it's closer to one percentage indicate per decade. More work to bring down childhood obesity rates is needed, for sure, but at that place is some proficient news hither!
From 1978 to 2003, the childhood obesity rate grew by about 1 percent point every 2 and a half years. Since 2003, it's closer to 1 percent signal per decade.
For many years, Blackness and Hispanic youth take had higher obesity rates than White or Asian youth. How take those differences been changing over fourth dimension?
That's correct. In 2016, 26 percent of Hispanic children had obesity, compared to 22 percent of Black children and 14 percent of White children. We observe that obesity rates among white children take remained steady since 2002 and are no longer increasing. Black and Hispanic children, on the other manus, take not seen the same progress and their obesity rates are continuing to increase. As a result, the gaps in obesity rates have been increasing between groups. For what it'southward worth, unfortunately our national data, the National Wellness and Nutrition Examination Survey, exercise not include a big enough sample for u.s. to reliably analyze obesity amid Asian children.
One pattern nosotros noticed that was surprising was that a lot of this increasing gap betwixt Black and Hispanic children on the one hand and White children on the other manus happens by the time children are age 5. Later on that betoken, all groups experience increases in obesity at nigh the same rate. This suggests that we need to be aiming more of our efforts to address obesity at younger children, and think most the nutrient and action environments they face in preschools, child care, and in their homes.
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Y'all also examined how rates differ between males and females. What did you see at that place?
The overall trends bear witness that boys and girls take similar rates of obesity, and accept experienced the same patterns of gains over time. In fact, we had to argue to keep the results by gender in the research, because reviewers did not recall the results were interesting! We pushed back, saying that the lack of difference is itself an interesting finding!
How well-nigh how obesity rates change equally children become older?
We found some pretty hit patterns every bit children get older. In detail, nosotros observe that a nascency cohort's obesity rate increases steadily from age 2 through near age 10, but that it levels out later on that, so that obesity rates stay steady from ages ten through eighteen. Of form, this design may differ for private children—that is, in their teenage years some kids hit a growth spurt and see their BMI fall while others run across theirs increase. Just overall, as a group, we observe that kids who were born in a sure yr take about the same obesity rates at ages eleven, xiv and 17.
There are many people and organizations – nonprofits, foundations, policymakers, businesses, schools, and others – working to help children grow up at a salubrious weight. How should they employ your new research to inform their strategies?
Kickoff, I'd want to point out that the slowing down of the charge per unit of increase in obesity that started around 2003 is real progress, and is likely due to the efforts that these groups have put into helping children abound up at a healthy weight. It's ever difficult to prove this statistically beyond a doubt, merely I'd say information technology is more than likely than not that these efforts helped out. If the upward trend in obesity had non been slowed, today babyhood obesity rates would be 10 percentage points higher than they actually are.
Nosotros probably want to direct additional resource at promoting healthy weights in younger children, specially in preschool years and extending through uncomplicated school years.
But at that place is more work to exist done, and I think nosotros uncover a few important facts that should help inform this work going forward. We probably want to direct additional resources at promoting healthy weights in younger children, especially in preschool years and extending through simple school years. I'd be quick to caution that we should not slow down our efforts at other ages, but instead we should retrieve about new investments in younger children. Second, we need to keep working at finding successful strategies especially for Black and Hispanic children, where we have seen less progress.
See the full article: Understanding recent trends in childhood obesity in the United states of america
Published on September 8, 2019
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Source: https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/stories/how-childhood-obesity-rates-have-changed-over-time/
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