Children aged 2-5 years were less likely to be obese than older children in 2003-2004; however, the results were reversed in 2011-2012, according to Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Ph.D., of Rice University, Houston, and Robert L. Wagmiller, Ph.D., of Temple University, Philadelphia.
Previous research showed that in the United States, the obesity rate in children aged 2-5 years decreased from 14% in 2003-2004 to 8% in 2011-2012. The sample study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) created by the investigators included 926 children from 2003 to 2004 (498 girls and 428 boys) and 974 children from 2011 to 2012 (482 girls and 492 boys), totaling 1,900 children.
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Although age and time are factors of the decreasing obesity rate, there are multiple other components that ultimately determined the researchers’ statistics. Factors such as race, gender, a child’s health characteristics, and activity are just a few, and these all were included as Blinder-Oaxaca regression decomposition techniques were used to assess the change in obesity over time. “The fact that older children were more likely to be obese than younger children in 2003-2004, but not in 2011-2012, has further implications,” Dr. Kranjac and Dr. Wagmiller said.
“If this association between age and obesity persists as these children advance into middle and late childhood, sizable reductions in obesity rates at later stages of childhood can be expected, as well as significant declines in the overall rate of childhood obesity over time,” the investigators concluded.
Read more about the study at Pediatrics (2016. doi: 10.1542/peds.2015-2096).