Incidence of Childhood Obesity in the United States
Updated: Oct 26, 2022
This systematic review reports the national incidence of obesity among elementary-school children in the United States. Check it out.
Access: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1309753
Incidence of Childhood Obesity in the United States
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Findings
Incident obesity between the ages of 5 and 14 years was more likely to have occurred at younger ages, primarily among children who had entered kindergarten overweight. The annual incidence of obesity decreased from 5.4% during kindergarten to 1.7% between fifth and eighth grade.
It’s important to focus obesity-prevention efforts on children younger or around the age of 5, in order to target obesity in later childhood and adolescence.
Supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Authors
Solveig A. Cunningham, Ph.D., Michael R. Kramer, Ph.D., and K.M. Venkat Narayan, M.D.