Study: According to a study published online on July 5 in Pediatrics, the incidence of childhood obesity is higher than it was 12 years ago.
Solwig A. Cunningham, from Emory University in Atlanta, and colleagues examined the incidence and prevalence of obesity in two groups of 12-year-olds in the United States in addition to using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Kindergarten groups from 1998 and 2010 were followed through fifth grade (2004 and 2016) with direct anthropometric measurements at several time points.
The researchers found a 4.5 percent relative increase in the cumulative incidence of new obesity cases by the end of fifth grade among obese children at kindergarten admissions (15.5 versus 16.2 percent), although no significant change in annual incidence was observed.
For children with an average body mass index at kindergarten entry, the risk of incident obesity remained the same, whereas the risk of incident obesity increased slightly among overweight kindergarteners. Social inequalities in the incidence of obesity widened: non-Hispanic black children saw a 29 percent increase in the incidence of new cases during primary school, while the risk remained stable or decreased for other race-ethnic groups. Primary schools saw a 15 percent higher cumulative incidence in 2010 versus 1998 for children from the most socioeconomically disadvantaged families.
“Although extensive public health efforts have been directed toward childhood obesity since 2010, these policies have had no effect on reducing population-level obesity,” the authors write.
