Sacramento, July 8 || US children today weigh more, battle more illnesses and face higher odds of dying than youngsters just a generation ago, according to the most extensive review of pediatric well-being published in nearly two decades.
The study, released Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), tracked 170 separate health indicators drawn from eight national data sets that stretched back to 2002, reports news agency.
"All of them point in the same direction: children's health is getting worse," lead author Christopher Forrest of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said.
Researchers found that obesity among 2-19-year-olds climbed from 17 per cent in the 2007-2008 survey cycle to about 21 per cent in the 2021-2023 cycle.
Electronic medical records covering more than 1 million young patients showed that diagnoses of at least one chronic condition, such as anxiety, depression, or sleep apnea, rose from roughly 40 per cent in 2011 to 46 per cent in 2023. A separate parent survey recorded a 15-20 per cent jump in the risk of any chronic illness since 2011.
Mortality statistics drew an even starker contrast with other wealthy nations. The JAMA editorial noted that this survival gap left the United States at the bottom of child health rankings among advanced economies, including Canada, Germany and Japan.