Report Shows Fewer Obese children - WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |

Undated (WXOW) -  For years, experts have warned that childhood obesity rates are climbing. Now there is some reason to think that we may be starting the new year in a new direction.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the last thirty years.

Obesity is associated with cardio-vascular risk factors and is likely to continue into adulthood.

Doctors at the CDC studied data on more than 26 million children ages two to four from low-income families in thirty states.

In a research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, they report that obesity went down from 15.2% in 2003 to 14.9% in 2010.

Extreme obesity decreased from 2.2% to 2.1% in 2010.

The authors believe theirs is the first study to indicate that obesity and extreme obesity in U.S. children may have begun to decline.