"Our research suggests that U.S. young people may be at greater obesity-related risks than what was revealed by increases in BMI, as waist circumference is a better predictor of future health risks, such as for type 2 diabetes and heart disease in adults," said May A. Beydoun, PhD, staff scientist, National Institute on Aging, NIH/IRP, and a former postdoctoral fellow in the Bloomberg School's Department of International Health. "More vigorous efforts should be made to understand the underlying causes. Moving forward, this could help guide future population-based interventions including those focusing on the total population and those targeting vulnerable or genetically susceptible groups."

"Socio-demographic disparities in distribution shifts over time in various adiposity measures among American children and adolescents: What changes in prevalence rates could not reveal" was May A. Beydoun and Youfa Wang.

SOURCE Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and National Institute on Aging