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New numbers show Canada could be turning the corner in the war on childhood obesity.
Health officials often warn about a childhood obesity epidemic, but new research suggests that in Canada, for the first time in years, the numbers of overweight and obese kids have decreased.
Between 1978 and 2004, the rate of Canadian kids who were overweight or obese climbed “significantly” from 23.3 per cent to 34.7 per cent. More than three in 10 children who were two to 17 years old fell into the overweight or obese categories.
Between 2004 and 2013, rates have eased from 30.7 per cent to 27 per cent, according to a new University of Manitoba study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Obesity rates in the U.S., meanwhile, didn’t change. It’s good news, suggesting Canada is faring better than the U.S. in the war against obesity – but then at the same time, the authors also write that Canadian children are still “relatively heavy.”
The authors, Drs. Celia Rodd and Atul Sharma, aren’t totally sure about what’s leading the decline, but offered a few suggestions.
One of which, they speculate, is introducing Body Mass Index (BMI) growth charts in 2000, which may have prompted health care workers to talk about a child being overweight more openly with parents or family members. They also point to a number of weight management programs introduced both regionally and nationally in Canada, and also to media ringing the alarm bell.
The data the researchers looked at came from the Canadian Community Health Survey and the Canadian Health Measures Survey. Sex distribution was evenly split, and 80 per cent of the children were white, although the study wasn’t able to look into regional or racial differences.
Agencies/Canadajournal
