Health experts believe that the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recent claim that obesity among U.S low-income preschoolers has declined for the first time is false. They question the methodology and samples used by the researchers.
In February, the CDC published a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluding that obesity rate among preschoolers dropped from 15.21 percent to 14.94 percent from 2003 to 2011. Data used was from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
A drop in obesity rate reflects the overall health of the nation so this study calls for a celebration for the government that has launched different anti-obesity campaigns. U.S First Lady Michelle Obama has dedicated herself in promoting the Let's Move! program that aims to end childhood obesity in the country so that children will grow up with a healthy weight. It also focuses on encouraging the community, including school, parents, and healthcare providers, to participate in promoting a healthy and active lifestyle.
The government even partnered with the fast food restaurant Subway with an initiative of creating more nutritious food choices for kids by adding fruits and vegetables on the menu. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also redesigned the Nutrition Facts label to highlight calories and servings so that consumers will be more aware of the product. Additionally, people will also see calorie information posted on five million vending machines in 2014. These are just some of the initiatives that the government has done to encourage everyone to be healthy.
Unfortunately, health experts still believe that none of these initiatives and those that came before it did something to improve childhood obesity rate. They remained skeptic and questioned the slight improvement reported by the CDC. They argued that even CDC admitted that their findings were inaccurate due to margin errors and a small sample size of 871.
"In small samples like this, you are going to have chance fluctuations," said epidemiologist Geoffrey Kabat of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, to Reuters.
Furthermore, the CDC report was also inconsistent because it claimed a slight improvement as conclusion but also declared that "there have been no significant changes in obesity prevalence in youth or adults between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012."
Corey Slavitt, CDC spokesperson, acknowledged the argument and said to Reuters that, "the sample size is somewhat small so the (ranges of values) are a little wide." The lead author of the study, Cynthia Ogden, refused to entertain any request for comments.
