NEW YORK — America’s obesity rates aren’t going to ease anytime soon, according to new government research.
Overall, obesity figures stayed about the same: About 40 percent of adults are obese, as are 18.5 percent of children. Those numbers are a slight increase from the last report, but the difference is so small that it could have occurred by chance.
Worrisome to experts is the rate for children and teenagers, which had hovered around 17 percent for a decade.
The 2-to-5 age group had the biggest rise.
The years ahead will show if that’s a statistical blip or marks the start of a real trend, said the report’s lead author, Dr. Craig Hales of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The bad news is that the numbers didn’t go down, experts said.
In recent years, state and national health officials have focused on obesity in children, who were the target of the national Let’s Move campaign begun by former first lady Michelle Obama in 2010.
The report released Friday covers 2015 and 2016.
“This is quite disappointing. If we were expecting the trends to budge, this is when they would be budging,” said Andrew Stokes, a Boston University expert on tracking obesity.
The new figures are from an annual government survey with about 5,000 participants.