According to a study
published by The Journal of the American Medical
Association today, obesity fell by 40 percent among
2-to-5-year-olds between 2003 and 2012 while remaining steady in
other age groups. Data collected by the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey (NHNES) in 2011 and 2012 found that
8.4 percent of 2-to-5-year-olds were obese, compared to 13.9
percent in 2003-04. In the more recent survey, 16.9 percent of
2-to-19-year-olds and 34.9 percent of adults (20 or older) were
obese, compared to 17.1 percent and 34.9 percent, respectively, in
the earlier survey. Those changes were not statistically
significant.
The New York Times heralds
the drop in obesity among 2-to-5-year-olds as “the first broad
decline in an epidemic that often leads to lifelong struggles with
weight and higher risks for cancer, heart disease and stroke.”
Health reporter Sabrina Tavernise says “the trend came as a welcome
surprise to researchers,” especially since “new evidence has shown
that obesity takes hold young: Children who are
overweight or obese at 3 to 5 years old are five times as likely to
be overweight or obese as adults.” As for what caused the decline,
no one really knows, but some advocates of government intervention
in this area are eager to take credit.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concedes
that “the precise reasons for the decline in obesity among 2 to 5
year olds are not clear.” CDC Director Thomas Frieden nevertheless
says the trend “confirms that at least for kids, we can turn the
tide and begin to reverse the obesity epidemic.” Who is “we”?
Michelle Obama, among others. “I am thrilled at the progress we’ve
made over the last few years in obesity rates among our youngest
Americans,” the first lady says in the CDC’s press release. “With
the participation of kids, parents, and communities in Let’s Move!
these last four years, healthier habits are beginning to
become the new norm.”
Since Obama launched her “Let’s Move!” campaign in February
2010, years after the downward trend measured by NHNES began, even
her most ardent fans would have to admit something else must be
going on. What about former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who
Tavernise says “made a major push to combat obesity”? Although
Bloomberg’s cap on soda servings was
overturned by the courts, Tavernise notes that “the
city told restaurants to stop using artificial trans
fats in cooking and required chain restaurants to display
calorie information on their menus.” But the trans fat ban was
based on concerns about cholesterol, not obesity, and there is
little
evidence that New York’s conspicuous calories counts have made
anyone thinner, let alone contributed to a nationwide drop in
obesity among preschoolers that began before the mandate.
“Many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually
work,” Tavernise concedes, “but proponents of the programs say a
broad set of policies applied systematically over a period of time
can affect behavior.” In other words, each intervention has zero
measurable effect, but when you add up all those zeros, you somehow
get a 40 percent decline in obesity among little kids. Synergy!
Tavernise also mentions changes in the Supplemental Nutrition
Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which has “reduced
funding for fruit juices, cheese and eggs and increased it for
whole fruits and vegetables.” She notes that “children now
consume fewer calories from sugary beverages than they
did in 1999” and that “more women are breast-feeding, which
can lead to a healthier range of weight gain for young children.”
Yet while “federal researchers have also chronicled a drop in
overall calories for children in the past decade,” Tavernise
says, “health experts said those declines [7 percent for boys and 4
percent for girls] were too small to make much difference.” If so,
it is hard to see how changes in food subsidies or soda consumption
could have had much of an impact.
What about activity levels? If little kids are burning more
calories than they did a decade ago, it probably has little to do
with deliberate interventions like those advocated by Michelle
Obama. A 2012 BMJ meta-analysis of 30
studies found “strong evidence that physical activity interventions
have had only a small effect (approximately 4 minutes more walking
or running per day) on children’s overall activity levels.” The
researchers said “this finding may explain, in part, why such
interventions have had limited success in reducing the body mass
index or body fat of children.”
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