New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a drop in the number of low-income preschoolers who quality as “obese” or “extremely obese.” The decline was modest, but researchers hope it’s the start of a trend.
“It’s extremely important to make sure we’re monitoring obesity in this low-income group,” said the CDC’s Heidi Blanck, who worked on the study.
Lower income children are shown to be at higher risk of obesity, partly because access to healthy foods is often restricted in poorer neighborhoods.
The researchers looked at stats for 27.5 million children between age 2 and 4. According to Reuters:
They found 13 percent of those preschoolers were obese in 1998. That grew to just above 15 percent in 2003, but dropped slightly below 15 percent in 2010, the most recent study year included.
Similarly, the prevalence of extreme obesity increased from nearly 1.8 percent in 1998 to 2.2 percent in 2003, then dropped back to just below 2.1 percent in 2010, the research team reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
