Oregon had the lowest rate of obesity in children aged 10-17 years in 2011, while Mississippi had the highest rate, the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported.
In Oregon, 9.9% of children aged 10-17 were obese (defined as a body mass index in the 95th to 98th percentile for age group). At 10.0%, New Jersey had the next-lowest rate, followed by Idaho (10.6%), Wyoming (10.7%), and Colorado (10.9%), according to "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2013."
In Mississippi, 21.7% of children aged 10-17 years were obese, with South Carolina second highest at 21.5%. The District of Columbia had the third-highest rate at 21.4%, followed by Louisiana at 21.1% and Tennessee at 20.5%, according to the report.
The data on childhood obesity are from the National Survey of Children's Health – conducted by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration – and involved 95,677 completed child-level interviews.
