As reported by Robin Givhan in this afternoon's Washington Post, the First Lady spoke with seven print reporters in the Old Family Dining Room in the White House today and, while eating pastries, announced her "marquee" position for '10: childhood obesity.
"I want to leave something behind that says because of the time that this person spent here, this thing has changed," she said. "I hope that will be in the area of childhood obesity."
Obama's announcement coincided with a report on "All Things Considered" this morning on research from the Centers for Disease Control quoting Dr. Bill Dietz, who directs the CDC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, saying that "the body mass index for children ages 2-19 has stabilized" and that the "changes likely began with women" as "women are the early adopters of healthy behaviors." Schools, Dietz says, have also made food offering changes that have contributed to the plateauing of the problem.
However: 17% of US children are still considered obese, and, most critically:
... CDC epidemiologist Cynthia Ogden, who was the lead author of the CDC report, says the heaviest boys are getting even heavier. Data showed an increase in obesity prevalence among boys -- in most cases, white -- ages 6 to 19 who were considered obese and at the very heaviest weight levels.
As reported by Jeannine Stein in today's Los Angeles Times:
One of the new studies, both released online Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., examined height and weight data in a nationally representative sample of 5,555 adult Americans collected in 2007 and 2008. In the sample, 33.8% of the subjects was obese.
Those numbers were compared to ones collected from 1999 to 2006 in a similar sample. Among women, obesity statistics remained fairly flat throughout the period encompassed by the two studies. Obesity rates among men rose slightly during the decade, but leveled off in the later years.
The second study examined nationally representative data on 3,281 children and teens ages 2 to 19, as well as 719 infants and toddlers. It found that obesity rates -- about 10% for infants and toddlers and 18% for adolescents and teens -- have also been fairly consistent over the last 10 years.
The one exception was the heaviest weight class for boys ages 6 to 19, whose numbers have risen.
Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist for the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the children's report, said the findings track with other reports, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which saw a plateau among students in grades nine through 12 from 2005 to 2007.
"We're continuing to see slowing," Ogden said, "although the prevalence of obesity remains very high."
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