Children's Health & Fitness ? State Finally Winning Fight Against ...

May 24th, 2012 by Len Saunders

From the Press Telegram?..

After years of dismal and discouraging data showing a seemingly inexorable rise in childhood obesity, recent research in California shows that the fight against this epidemic is finally starting to pay off.

Late last year, a joint study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy found that not only had the increase in childhood obesity stopped, the rate had even started to fall slightly. Whereas the percentage of overweight and obese children in California peaked at 38.5 percent in 2005, the researchers found that by 2010 the proportion had dipped to 38 percent. While a slight decrease, this reversal is significant given the year-after-year rise up until the mid-2000s.

The study?s authors noted that the improvement was spotty throughout the state. Some counties, such as Alameda, Contra Costa and Kern, saw increases in childhood obesity rates. In Kern, for instance, between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of overweight or obese children rose from 41.4 percent to 43.8, a 2.4 percent increase. In contrast, however, other counties saw marked declines.

Mammoth Los Angeles County, which always seems to be the punchline of jokes about how bad California is performing in any given category, actually had a greater decrease in childhood obesity than the state as a whole. In 2005, 42.6 percent of Los Angeles students studied were overweight or obese. By 2010, that percentage had fallen to 41.5 percent, more

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Entry Filed under: Health / Fitness Articles

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