Good News On Obesity

The NY Times reports semi-good news on the obesity front:

Hint of Hope as Child Obesity Rate Hits Plateau

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Childhood obesity, rising for more than two decades, appears to have hit a plateau, a potentially significant milestone in the battle against excessive weight gain among children.

But the finding, based on survey data gathered from 1999 to 2006 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in Wednesday’s issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, was greeted with guarded optimism.

It is not clear if the lull in childhood weight gain is permanent or even if it is the result of public anti-obesity efforts to limit junk food and increase physical activity in schools. Doctors noted that even if the trend held up, 32 percent of American schoolchildren remained overweight or obese, representing an entire generation that will be saddled with weight-related health problems as it ages.

We get a hint of some income/ethnicity connection:

One trend that has not changed in the new data are differences in obesity risk based on age and race. Children 2 to 5 were significantly less likely to be overweight compared with adolescents ages 12 to 19. While about 14.5 percent of white adolescent girls were obese, the numbers jumped to 20 percent for Mexican-American teenage girls and 28 percent for black teenage girls.

Among boys, Mexican-Americans were also more likely to have a high body mass index compared with white boys. Despite the differences, obesity rates have also appeared to stabilize among minority children.

And this is the Times, so the story closes with a call for a Federal program:

“We still lack anything resembling a national strategy to take this problem seriously,” said Dr. Ludwig, co-author of an editorial accompanying the obesity report. “The rates of obesity in children are so hugely high that without any further increases, the impact of this epidemic will be felt with increasing severity for many years to come.”

Hmm - No Child Left With A Fat Behind?

Comments

[Danube of Thought]

Obama will make them thin.

[MarkO]

And rich.

[Rick Ballard]

And smart.

[Jane]

And fear-less

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Rather than wait for the next Krugman post, I'll note that there are a lot of big guys playing football, and Steve Malanga says that there is more inequality in the NFL than the society at large. Even though the NFL has lots of socialism--salary caps and unions--supposedly designed to alleviate that:

...is there really, as both sides seem to claim, income inequality in the NFL? And if there is, does it say anything about the gap between the rich and the rest of us in society in general? I took a look at the salary structure of the team with the biggest payroll in 2007, the Washington Redskins, who paid $123 million in salaries to 59 players, including those on the practice squad, over the course of the year. That’s a rich pot, but what I found was that the top quintile, or 20 percent, of the roster took home 63 percent of the money, and the top two quintiles earned 85 percent.

....by way of comparison, I took a look at how this income structure compares with household incomes in the United States. According to U.S. Census data, the top quintile, or 20 percent of households, captured about 51 percent of total family income, while the second quintile earned about 23 percent off all family income. Together, that amounts to about 74 percent of all household income. In other words, income is actually slightly more concentrated in the NFL than it is within our larger society, and there is a bigger gap between the richest and everyone else in football.

So, if unions and redistributionist schemes didn't work in the NFL--and in baseball and the NBA--why would it be any different in the larger economy?

[Don]

On come on Karl Rove's favorite blog! Your little liar buddy needs you more than ever.
McClellan just outs him and you want to talk about fat kids?

Karl's first fumbling defense is that the President's press secretary was "out of the loop."!!! Good god that's funny, but still pathetic.

Better get cranking! Or have you lost that liar-loving feeling?

[Jane]

Someone is starved for attention!

[MikeS]

...32 percent of American schoolchildren remained overweight or obese, representing an entire generation that...

Is this that new math? Fuzzy math?
Does this mean the other 68% will have to share the costs of this obesity?

If that is so, doesn't the entire generation share the costs if 10% are overweight, or 5%?

[PeterUK]

A shame this is too late for Algore,though his layer of blubber will see him through the Great Coldening.

[PeterUK]

"Someone is starved for attention!"

The word fat must have hit a nerve for Don.

[Don]

I'm just amazed at how the internet's biggest group of Rove/Libby defenders has sort of fizzled out. The thrill is gone, I suppose.

Rove is now sputtering that the very guy who told the press Rove was not involved was "out of the loop."

I'll say!!!!

[bad]

Don

What do you mean "Rove's favorite blog"? This actually Rove's blog. He just writes under a soo-doe-nim.

I did the big words phone-et-i-cally for you. Com-pash-i-net con-serve-i-tism and all that.

[PeterUK]

Wow Don,only a dozen comments into a new thread and you boldly predict it has fizzled out ?

[centralcal]

too funny, bad! LMAO

[clarice]

Perhaps if the govt shredded its stupid food pyramid which induces people to eat too many carbs, it would help.
Perhaps if the streets were made safer so more kids could go out and play when their parents were at work it would help.
Perhaps if we recognized that different ethnic groups might need different diets it would help.(IIRC, i.e.,Plains Indians induced to return to a high game, low carb diet seem to avoid diabetes and those that don't almost certainly get it.)

[Danube of Thought]

Rove is now very happily making tons of money as a political anyalyst.

Anyone conerned about pay inequality should take a long, lingering look at what the plaintiffs' class-action lawyer receives at the end of a lawsuit, as compared with what the individual class members get. It is far and away the largest pay disparity in America.

[Danube of Thought]

And perhaps the Samoans would want to recalculate as well.

[jimmyk]

In that group, about 16 percent of children and teenagers were obese, which is defined as having a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile on United States growth charts.

I'm confused. Doesn't the percent above the 95th percentile have to be 5 percent? Sure enough, a couple of sentences later:

By comparison, about 5 percent of children and teenagers in the United States were obese in the 1960s and 1970s.

So maybe she means that the definition is based on the growth charts of the 60s and 70s?

And again:

Estimates for the number of children who fall into the overweight or obese category also have remained stable at about 32 percent since 1999. Overweight is defined as at or above the 85th percentile.

Very sloppy editing for the paper of record.

[Danube of Thought]

Well, regardless of whether the Times has buggered up the facts beyond comprehension, I'm sure that all people of good will can agree that it's high time for governmental intervention.

[Les Nessman]

You know, none of these distractions helps Michelle's kids lose weight.

[LindaK]

Michelle's kids don't need to lose weight. They're on the arugula diet.

[Neo]

My son, who is 6 foot and 145 pounds, came home with a note that claims his BMI puts him in the 87 percentile, therefore likely to be obese.

I took another look at him and exclaimed Bullshit.

[Neo]

I sometimes think that obesity and poverty are readjusted to maintain the same percentage, no matter what BMI or earnings are necessary to achieve that.

[LindaK]

Neo,

Don't you wish schools would return to their mission of teaching, instead of being health nannies and trying to turn kids into treehuggers.

[SukieTawdry]

Obama will make them thin.

He's already laid down the law about eating "as much as we want." I'd say this problem's as good as solved.

[richard mcenroe]

Actually it was a peak, not a plateau... but it collapsed under the weight....