R.I. has one of highest obesity rates for low-income children

RHODE ISLAND's obesity rate for children ages 2-4 who received Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children benefits in 2014 was among the highest in the nation at 16.3 percent, according to the Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. / COURTESY ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
RHODE ISLAND's obesity rate for children ages 2-4 who received Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children benefits in 2014 was among the highest in the nation at 16.3 percent, according to the Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. / COURTESY ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island has one of the highest obesity rates for 2- to 4-year-old participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children in the nation, according to findings released by the Trust for America’s Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation this week.
The organizations used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In 2014, the most recent year available, Utah had the lowest rate of 2- to 4-year-old WIC participants who were obese at 8.2 percent, while Virginia had the highest rate at 20 percent.
Rhode Island tied for 10th highest with Alabama for a 16.3 percent obesity rate. Massachusetts tied with California for the sixth-highest rate at 16.6 percent.
The organizations said 18 states had obesity rates at or above 15 percent among 2- to 4-year-old WIC participants in 2014, which is an improvement from 2010, when 26 states had a rate at or above 15 percent.
“While obesity rates among this population have declined in recent years, they remain high – with a national average of 14.5 percent. The national average was 8.4 percent in 1992,” they wrote in a press release.
In 2004, Rhode Island had the fourth-highest obesity rate among this population at 18.3 percent. In 2012, the Ocean State’s rate for these children was 16.7 percent, ranking it eighth-highest in the nation.
The organizations said Rhode Island last year had the 12th-lowest rate of obesity for adults in the nation at 26 percent.

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