Rising childhood obesity ‘exceptionally concerning,’ says expert
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that childhood obesity in the U.S. has reached its highest rate ever recorded—a distressing milestone, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s David Ludwig.
Ludwig, professor in the Department of Nutrition, was among the experts quoted in a Feb. 25 ABC article about the CDC’s report. It found that between 2021 and 2023, 21.1% of American youth ages 2 to 19 were obese. The same report in the 1970s found that between 1971 and 1974, just 5.2% of children and teens were obese.
Ludwig called today’s rate “exceptionally concerning.” Decades ago, he told ABC, “children were certainly recognized [as obese] but it was the rare child, one in 20. And now we’re looking at one in five children with obesity.”
He added that in the 2010s, obesity rates among 2-to-5-year-olds were on the decline, dropping from 12.1% between 2009 and 2010 to 9.4% between 2013 and 2014. What Ludwig then saw as a “glimmer of hope” has since extinguished. Today, the rate has jumped to 14.9%.
“We saw that dip [in 2014] and we all got excited thinking that we were beginning to turn the tide,” Ludwig said. “In retrospect, that was more of a statistical aberration, more of mirage than a true glimmer of hope because the trend overall has continued upward.”
Other experts quoted in the article listed a range of potential solutions to the youth obesity epidemic, including lifestyle modifications such as healthier eating and medical interventions such as medications and bariatric surgery.
Read the ABC article: US child, teen obesity rates reach record high while adult trends appear to slow, CDC report finds
