Incidence of obesity in US children and Teens has not raised: Study

In U.S. between 1999 and 2006, there were no significant changes found in obese children and teens as compared to the past records which had caused an increase in weight in them, says a study published in the May 28 issue of JAMA.

“In the United States, the prevalence of overweight among children increased between 1980 and 2004, and the heaviest children have been getting heavier,” the authors write.

Cynthia L. Ogden, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Hyattsville, Md., and colleagues revised the current national estimates of the pervasiveness of pediatric high body mass index (BMI).

The different measurements were gauged according to the height and weight in 8,165 children and adolescents as part of the 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which are nationally representative surveys of the U.S. population.

Ogden and colleagues checked the body mass index at three levels: one was at or above the 97th percentile, second was at or above the 95th percentile and third at or above the 85th percentile, on the basis of 2000 sex-specific BMI-for-age growth charts among US children.

There were no major statistical changes in high BMI for age in the period gap of 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. There weren’t any statistical prime trend in high BMI, found over the period of 1999-2000, 2001-2002, 2003-2004, and 2005-2006.

As there were no prime differences between the years 2003-2004 and 2005-2006, the 2 surveys were studied together to get a detailed population estimates for the prevalence of high BMI.

In this period, 16.3 percent of children and adolescents were found to have a BMI for age at or above the 95th percentile and 31.9 percent were at or above the 85th percentile.

The estimation varied by age and also by racial or ethnic group. The Non-Hispanic black and Mexican American girls were prone to have a high BMI for age than non-Hispanic white girls. In boys the Mexican Americans were drastically prone to have high BMI for age than non-Hispanic white boys.