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# Low income linked to higher risk of obesity in young children
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/low_income_high_obesity_risk_0827110241/
- Published: 2011-08-28T15:40:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:08:30.000Z
- Description: A Diabetes Care analysis of 1999-2008 NHANES data found 20 percent of boys aged 6 to 11 in the lowest income tertile were obese against 13 percent in the highest, with similar gaps for central obesity and among girls aged 12 to 17. Other cardiovascular risk factors showed little income gap.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Disease, Health News, Obesity, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, Ph.D.

A new study in the Sept 2011 issue of Diabetes Care found children from poor families were more likely to be obese. 

The study showed that of boys aged 6 to 11 years, 20 percent of those in the lowest income tertile were obese and 30 percent centrally obese, compared to 13 and 22 percent of boys in the highest income tertile, respectively.

Of boys aged 12 to 17 years, 21, 15, and 19 percent of those in the lowest income tertile were obese, sedentary and smoking, respectively, compared to 16, 9 and 7 percent of those in the highest income tertile.

Similar associations were observed among girls aged 12 to 17 years. Of girls in this age group, 18, 42 and 20 percent were obese, centrally obese, and sedentary and smoking, respectively. This is compared to 13, 29, and 9 percent among the highest income girls, respectively.

However, low income young adults were no more than likely than the rich young adults to have elevated levels of cardiovascular disease risk factors except that low income young adults had higher non-HDL-C.

M.K. Ali and colleagues of Emory University found all the associations after analyzing data from 1999-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES).

Previous studies found obesity is linked with high risk of heart disease and diabetes among other things.