Severe Obesity in US Children Has More Than Tripled Since 2008

The proportion of severely overweight children in the US has skyrocketed in recent years, with the highest rates seen in adolescents and Black children, a new study found.

Roughly 23% of all children were obese in 2023, up from 19% in 2008, according to the survey published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open. Additionally, more than 1% of children between the ages of 2 and 18 had “extremely severe obesity” — a 250% increase from the start of the study, the researchers from the University of California, San Diego, found.

Phillipp Hartmann, the study’s corresponding author, said he hopes the ...