2023-12-19 20:02:56
A new study confirms that severe obesity is increasingly common among young American children.
One would hope that children on a government food program would buck the trend in obesity rates ― previous research showed that rates were falling slightly about a decade ago for these children. But an update published Monday in the journal Pediatrics shows that the rate has increased slightly since 2020. The increase echoes other national data, which indicates that about 2.5% of preschoolers had severe obesity during the same period. “We were well on our way and now we see this upward trend,” said one of the study’s authors, Heidi Blanck of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are dismayed by these results. »
The study included children ages 2 to 4 enrolled in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, which provides healthy foods and other services to preschool-aged children from low-income families. . The children were weighed and measured. Researchers found that 2.1 percent of children enrolled in the program were severely obese in 2010. Six years later, that rate had dropped to 1.8 percent. In 2020, it reached 2%. That’s about 33,000 children out of more than 1.6 million children in the WIC program. Significant increases were observed in twenty states, with the highest rate in California (2.8%). Notable increases were also seen in some racial and ethnic groups. The highest rate, about 2.8%, is among Hispanic children.
Experts say severe obesity at a very early age is almost irreversible and is strongly associated with chronic health problems and premature death. The reasons for this increase are not clear, admitted Ms. Blanck. When WIC obesity rates fell, some experts attributed it to 2009 policy changes that eliminated fruit juice from infant food packages, provided less saturated fat and tried to make it easier to buy of fruits and vegetables. The packaging has not changed. But “the daily challenges faced by families living in poverty may be greater today than they were a decade ago, and small increases in WIC provision were simply not enough,” she said. says Dr. Sarah Armstrong, a childhood obesity researcher at Duke University.
The researchers faced challenges. The number of children in the WIC program has declined over the past decade. Additionally, the study period included 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic in which fewer parents took their children to the doctor. The amount of comprehensive information available has been reduced. Despite its limitations, it is a “very well done study,” said Deanna Hoelscher, a childhood obesity researcher at the University of Houston School of Public Health. It is not yet clear what has happened since 2020. Some small studies have suggested a marked increase in childhood obesity, particularly during the pandemic, when children were kept at home, as dietary habits and bedtime were disrupted and physical activity decreased.
“We think the situation will get worse,” Ms. Hoelscher said.
Photo credit: Archives.
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