Childhood obesity has grown from 5% in 1978 to 18.5% in 2016; the rate of increase in childhood obesity has slowed from 2004 to 2016

Understanding recent trends in childhood obesity in the United States. Patricia M. Anderson, Kristin F. Butcher, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. Economics & Human Biology, Volume 34, August 2019, Pages 16-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2019.02.002

Highlights
• Childhood obesity has grown from 5% in 1978 to 18.5% in 2016.
• The rate of increase in childhood obesity has slowed from 2004 to 2016.
• Cohort-level obesity increases through age 10 and is steady through age 18.
• 5 year olds in 2010 were 2 percentage points more likely to be obese than in 1997.
• The rate of obesity growth from kindergarten to 3rd grade has recently declined.

Abstract: The prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States has more than tripled over the last four decades from 5 percent in 1978 to 18.5 percent in 2016. There is evidence for a break in trend in recent years: after growing from 0.4 to 0.7 percentage point per year between 1978 and 2004, the rate of increase has slowed to 0.1 percentage point per year from 2004 to 2016. To better understand these trends, in this paper we analyze a range of datasets that collect information on childhood obesity. We analyze the data overall, across the age distribution, across birth cohorts, and for subgroups of interest. We find steady increases in cohort-level obesity prevalence through approximately age 10, with levels unchanged thereafter, suggesting a need for additional interventions at early ages. We find that the prevalence of obesity has diverged by race and gender in recent years, especially among children entering kindergarten. Compared with 5-year-olds in 1997, 5-year-olds in 2010 were 2 percentage points more likely to be obese overall. Black and Hispanic 5-year-olds were 5 and 3 percentage points more likely to be obese, respectively, while whites had a 1 percentage point increase in obesity. However, overall and among all subgroups the rate of growth in obesity from kindergarten through 3rd grade has declined in recent years. Together, these findings can inform a future research literature that aims to target obesity interventions where they will be most impactful.