From Your Health Journal…..”WebMD is one of my favorite sites on the net, and I always enjoy visiting there. I strongly recommend my visitors going to this site (link below) to read all of their great articles. I was happy to read an article there today about childhood obesity going down in some areas of the US. The article suggests that physical activity be part of children’s lives, eating healthy, and reducing some sugary drinks. Please visit the WebMD site to read more of this article.”

From the article…..

New data suggest that we may have turned an important corner in the childhood obesity epidemic.

While rates of obesity and extreme obesity in preschoolers rose from 1998 to 2003, they began to plateau soon thereafter. And childhood obesity rates decreased slightly in 2010.

“We are very encouraged by this data,” says study researcher Heidi M. Blanck, PhD, of the CDC in Atlanta. “It’s pretty exciting and a nice turning of the tide. But we have to stay vigilant or it will go in the other direction.”

Researchers looked at data on 27.5 million children aged 2 to 4 from 1998 to 2010. These children were from 30 states and Washington, D.C. Many were eligible for government assistance.

The rate of child obesity rose from 13.05% in 1998 to 15.21% in 2003. But it fell to 14.94% in 2010.

The rate of extreme child obesity declined from 2.22% in 2003 to 2.07% in 2010, the study shows.

The findings appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What makes the data even more promising is that many of the national initiatives aimed at lowering rates of childhood obesity hadn’t been started or were not at full force during most of the study period, Blanck says.

For example, efforts aimed at making it easier for new moms to breastfeed are just now gaining traction. Breastfeeding has been shown to help prevent obesity. There are also new programs that help people on food stamps purchase healthier foods.

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