NEW YORK (AP) — In the battle against childhood obesity, New York City appears to be doing better than Los Angeles, at least for low-income preschoolers.
A study released Thursday compared obesity rates for young poor children in the nation's two largest cities over nine years. Rates dipped in New York from about 19 percent to 16 percent. But in Los Angeles they rose from 17 percent to more than 21 percent before dropping to about 20 percent.
One reason for the difference: The group of Los Angeles children included many more Mexican-Americans, and obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black children.
The study joins other recent reports of declines in childhood obesity rates in places like Philadelphia, Anchorage and Kearney, Neb.
New York City's health commissioner said he was glad to hear the study's results, calling them "a big success."
Michael Bloomberg, the city's mayor, has mounted a well-publicized campaign to put calorie labels on fast food menus and reducing the calories in school lunch items.
But with high rates of overweight and obesity in older children and adults, "there is much more work to be done,' Dr. Thomas Farley said in a statement.
The director of Los Angeles County's health department said it's not clear why the rate rose there, but he was heartened to see it peak around 2009 and decline after.
"This is the first clear evidence — in the largest municipalities in the country — of this kind of decline" in pre-school age children," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding in a phone interview.
The research focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program for women, infants and young children known as WIC that provides food vouchers and other services. The children in the New York and California programs are measured and weighed every six months.
