Bay Area Kids Get a Little Fatter … Except in San Mateo County
Health advocates heaved a sign of relief this month over a new report showing that the obesity epidemic may be leveling off. In the past five years, the percentage of overweight and obese kids in California dropped by one percent. Not a screaming success, but a lot better than the gains seen since the 80s … or even in the past decade. The rate of overweight kids in California increased by six percent between 2001 to 2004 alone.
Some individual counties saw drops in obesity levels while others, like Del Norte County, saw massive increases. The report, aptly named “A Patchwork of Progress,” reflects on these discrepancies. The Bay Area itself is somewhat of a patchwork, too. In nearly all Bay counties, childhood obesity rates are on the rise. The single exception was San Mateo county, which saw 5.6 percent decrease.
Read the rest on KQED’s State of health blog.
a patchwork of progress, California, children's health, Obesity