A recent article in the New York Times highlighted research findings from a CDC report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed a significant decrease in obesity rates among young children (ages 2 – 5) from 13.9% to 8.4% between 2003-04 and 2011-12.
This drop in obesity rates is a good sign. Barry Popkin offered some explanation of what UNCFRP research has found:
Barry M. Popkin, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has tracked American food purchases in a large data project, said families with children had been buying lower-calorie foods over the past decade, a pattern he said was unrelated to the economic downturn.
He credited those habits, and changes in the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, for the decline in obesity among young children. The program, which subsidizes food for low-income women, reduced funding for fruit juices, cheese and eggs and increased it for whole fruits and vegetables.
Read more now: Obesity rate for young children plummets 43% in a decade – New York Times