HHS HealthBeat (August 31, 2010)

Heavier and wider kids

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A study says more American kids have been growing overweight – and, the study, which looked at different generations of kids, finds overweight kids have been growing even fatter.

Drs. Youfa Wang and May Beydoun of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health compared national data on children from 1999 through 2004 with their counterparts a decade earlier. Dr. Wang says it’s not just what they weighed, but where the weight was:

"Over this 10-year period, we found American children becoming heavier. Also, we found they put on more abdominal fat." (6 seconds)

The increase in waist size especially could cause more health problems.

The study in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August, 30 2010