Early recognition of overweight and obesity, by family and physicians, is crucial, particularly among kids who have higher rates of obesity. However, many people, including many Latinos, don't understand how urgent childhood obesity is because of confusion between overweight and obesity and confusion about what obesity actually looks like.
Parents Underestimate Child's Risk
Parents, in particular, are often unable to correctly identify their child's weight status, thus underestimating their risk for many life-threatening diseases. Additional confusion, that leads to underestimation of health risk associated with obesity, is related to beliefs that big babies are healthier than small babies, and that kids will "grow out of" obesity.
Children Don't "Grow Out of" Obesity
Research ...
New reports reveal that childhood obesity rates are declining and the national diet is improving.
According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, communities of color and low-income are more likely to be hit by higher rates of childhood obesity, however, states across the nation have shown signs of progress! For example, Georgia has seen a 10.8% decline in obesity among children ages 2-4, New Mexico has also seen a 15.1% and 11.1% decline in overweight and obesity among children, and in a Wisconsin school district, a report shows a combined overweight and obesity decline of 30.2%.
How are these communities ensuring healthy weights for kids?
Communities are building a culture of health by working together to increase consumption of healthier foods and beverages and increase physical ...
According to a recent study led by Duke Clinical Research Institute childhood obesity in the United States has not declined and severe obesity remains high. Dr. Sarah Armstrong pediatrician and director of the Duke Healthy Lifestyles Program said in a recent video in regards to the childhood obesity epidemic that, "Not seeing changes in the actual numbers, as this study points out, certainly is problematic, because there have been all the efforts aimed towards it." Researchers found that 33.4 percent of children between the ages of 2 through 19 were overweight and among those 17.4 percent had obesity. The results showed the continued increase of obesity among children from 1999 through 2014. Also according to the recent article 4.5 million children and adolescents had severe ...
Childhood obesity—a condition that affects more than 39% of Latino children, can be predicted as early as 6 months of age using simple body mass index (BMI), a new study reveals. “BMI at 6, 12 or 18 months of age above the 85th percentile on the growth chart can accurately predict children at risk for early childhood obesity," says Allison Smego, MD, a fellow in the division of Endocrinology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Center and the study's lead author. "These children have a high lifetime risk for persistent obesity and metabolic disease and should be monitored closely at a very young age." For the study researchers studied lean and obese children under the age of 6 and found that the “BMI in children who become severely obese by age 6 began to differ from children who ...
Salud America! today released six Spanish-language animated videos that shed light on the causes of solutions to childhood obesity. The videos, which are also available in English, explore the latest research into how six critical topics—marketing, school snacks, sugary drinks, neighborhood food environments, active play and access to active spaces—impact child health. The videos also feature evidence-based recommendations on how to address the problem. The child-narrated videos are part of a six new packages of research materials produced by Salud America!, a national research network on childhood obesity that is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Each topic’s package contains: a research review, an assessment of all available scientific evidence on ...
While childhood obesity remains a problem in the US, much progress has been made to address the epidemic over the past 20 years. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recently published its 2025 State of Childhood Obesity Report to reflect on the national movement to address childhood obesity and its many accomplishments and lessons learned over time. “Our work together has always been grounded in a simple belief: that every child should be able to grow up healthy, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money their family has,” said Jamie Bussel, RWJF senior officer. Let’s dive deeper into this report and how it can shape efforts to address childhood obesity.
1. Major Commitments Require Vision, Staying Power
The RWJF report describes the skyrocketing ...
Childhood obesity is not only common for U.S. children, it’s a global epidemic. How can communities address this issue? A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Meeting the Moment: Learning From Leaders at the Forefront of Change, asked community leaders and researchers to share their experiences in hopes of better understanding and preventing childhood obesity. “It is you who get out there every day and innovate, renovate, and motivate the field to keep going, keep trying, keep striving,” said Jamie Bussel, senior program officer for the RWJF. Let’s explore four key areas community leaders can eliminate childhood obesity!
1. Improve Health Data
Accurate health data is important. For instance, we know Latino adults have higher obesity rates ...
When David Miskie graduated from UC Berkeley, he wasn’t planning on starting a cereal company. He actually worked for a few years in consulting, private equity, and investment banking. But after working on consumer products, Miskie, his dad, and his best friend Matt Teichman had an idea – What if we could create a product that everyone loves and make it healthier and better for you? That’s how San Franola Cereals & Snacks was born. Ten years later, San Franola is focused on distributing high quality, whole-food cereals to public schools. They’ve even expanded their labels to include Spanish, so that Spanish-speaking, Latino families can know what healthy ingredients are in their cereal. While keeping up with consumer demand and adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic ...
Latino and all kids could have a higher risk for obesity based on the mere air they breathe. A past study placed pregnant lab rats into two different chambers: one with polluted air from Beijing and one with filtered air. Parent and offspring rats in the first chamber gained more weight than the other rats. They were also more likely to have cardiorespiratory and metabolic dysfunctions. Junfeng “Jim” Zhang, professor of global and environmental health at Duke University, wants to find out if this same risk applies to humans. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has awarded Zhang a $2 million grant to study the effects of prenatal and early-life exposure to air pollution. He will examine how birthweight and early childhood growth—two ...
