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America's child obesity epidemic shows no signs of shrinking. About 4.8 million American kids aged 10 to 17 -- just over 15% -- were obese in 2017-2018, according to a new report. "These new data show that this challenge touches the lives of far too many children in this country," said Dr. Richard Besser, the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which produced the new report. (Preidt, 10/10)

Data released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Thursday shows the obesity rate among people aged 10 to 17 has held steady in recent years. The obesity rate for this age group is 12.5%, or 73,800 people, which is neither an increase nor a decrease, according to the data. Missouri ranks fifteenth lowest in the nation for obesity rates in this age group. (Straughn, 10/10)

Pennsylvania children are among the most obese in the nation, according to the first-ever report on childhood obesity released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Thursday. The disparities in obesity rates cut across racial, socioeconomic and state lines, with more black and Hispanic children ages 10-17 suffering from obesity than their white and Asian peers. Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky had the highest child obesity rates, while Alaska, Minnesota and Utah had the lowest rates. (Huang, 10/10)

More than 50,000 children in Iowa ages 10 to 17 are obese, a new report from a national health philanthropy organization says. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Thursday published a childhood obesity report based on data from 2017 and 2018. It shows that 16.4% of Iowa children in the age group have obesity. (Rodriguez, 10/10)

A study released Thursday, Oct. 10, shows there are 485,700 young people in the United States between the ages of 10-17 who have obesity. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) State of Childhood Obesity: Helping All Children Grow up Healthy report is the first report of its kind on national and state childhood obesity rates. The childhood obesity rate in Texas is 15.5 percent, 19th in the country, and has remained mostly unchanged in recent years. (Kowalick, 10/10)

Oklahoma’s childhood obesity rate is the sixth-highest in the nation, according to a newly released data report, and the figure hasn’t changed much from recent years. Eighteen percent of 10-to-17-year-olds in the state are obese, which is about 72,500 teens. Although the rate hasn’t necessarily improved, state officials view the steady figure as progress. (Schlotthauer, 10/10)

High fives to our healthy Wyoming kids. According to a report released Oct. 3 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Wyoming’s children are some of the thinnest in the country. In 2017 and 2018, the years covered in the report, just 11.8% of kids in the state qualified as obese, below the national rate of 15.3%. Wyoming has the 10th lowest obesity rate in the nation, following mostly Western states. Utah has the lowest at 8.7%, while Mississippi has the highest rate at 25.4%. (Hallberg, 10/10)

Childhood obesity rates have remained fairly steady across the country over the past few years, but Arizona’s rates have actually dropped and is now tied for 17th best in the country. (Brodie, 10/10)

Mountain West states have some of the lowest rates of youth obesity in the country, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Utah's rate of 8.7% was found to be the lowest in the country, while Colorado and Montana, with rates of 10.7% and 10.8%, respectively, were also among the six states with obesity rates statistically significantly lower than the national average of 15.3%. (Glick, 10/10)

Minnesota was one of six states with “statistically significantly lower” rates of childhood obesity according to the 2017-18 data used in the study, said an accompanying news release. Minnesota had the second-best percentage overall, 9.4; Utah led the way with 8.7%. The national rate was 15.3%, down from 16.1% in 2016 — not a statistically significant difference, according to the report. Wisconsin’s rate was 14.3%, tied for 28th highest in the nation. (Lundy, 10/9)