American kids have become increasingly unhealthy over nearly two
decades, new study finds
[July 08, 2025]
By LAURA UNGAR and JONEL ALECCIA
The health of U.S. children has deteriorated over the past 17 years,
with kids today more likely to have obesity, chronic diseases and mental
health problems like depression, a new study says.
Much of what researchers found was already known, but the study paints a
comprehensive picture by examining various aspects of children’s
physical and mental health at the same time.
“The surprising part of the study wasn’t any with any single statistic;
it was that there’s 170 indicators, eight data sources, all showing the
same thing: a generalized decline in kids’ health,” said Dr. Christopher
Forrest, one of the authors of the study published Monday in the Journal
of the American Medical Association.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has brought children's health to
the forefront of the national policy conversation, unveiling in May a
much-anticipated “Make America Healthy Again” report that described kids
as undernourished and overmedicated, and raised concerns about their
lack of physical activity. But the Trump administration's actions —
including cuts to federal health agencies, Medicaid and scientific
research — are not likely to reverse the trend, according to outside
experts who reviewed Monday’s study.
“The health of kids in America is not as good as it should be, not as
good as the other countries, and the current policies of this
administration are definitely going to make it worse,” said Dr.
Frederick Rivara, a pediatrician and researcher at the Seattle
Children's Hospital and UW Medicine in Seattle. He co-authored an
editorial accompanying the new study.
Forrest and his colleagues analyzed surveys, electronic health records
from 10 pediatric health systems and international mortality statistics.
Among their findings:
— Obesity rates for U.S. children 2-19 years old rose from 17% in
2007-2008 to about 21% in 2021-2023.
— A U.S. child in 2023 was 15% to 20% more likely than a U.S. child in
2011 to have a chronic condition such as anxiety, depression or sleep
apnea, according to data reported by parents and doctors.
— Annual prevalence rates for 97 chronic conditions recorded by doctors
rose from about 40% in 2011 to about 46% in 2023.
— Early onset of menstruation, trouble sleeping, limitations in
activity, physical symptoms, depressive symptoms and loneliness also
increased among American kids during the study period.
— American children were around 1.8 times more likely to die than kids
in other high-income countries from 2007-2022. Being born premature and
sudden unexpected death were much higher among U.S. infants, and
firearm-related incidents and motor vehicle crashes were much more
common among 1-19-year-old American kids than among those the same age
in other countries examined.
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Children run on the lawn at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City,
Mo., on April 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
 The research points to bigger
problems with America’s health, said Forrest, who is a pediatrician
at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“Kids are the canaries in the coal mine,” he said. “ When kids’
health changes, it’s because they’re at increased vulnerability, and
it reflects what’s happening in society at large.”
The timing of the study, he said, is “completely fortuitous." Well
before the 2024 presidential election, Forrest was working on a book
about thriving over the life span and couldn’t find this sort of
comprehensive data on children’s health.
The datasets analyzed have some limitations and may not be
applicable to the full U.S. population, noted Dr. James Perrin, a
pediatrician and spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics,
who wasn't involved in the study.
“The basic finding is true,” he said.
The editorial published alongside the study said while the
administration's MAHA movement is bringing welcome attention to
chronic diseases, "it is pursuing other policies that will work
against the interests of children.” Those include eliminating injury
prevention and maternal health programs, canceling investments in a
campaign addressing sudden infant death and “fueling vaccine
hesitancy among parents that may lead to a resurgence of deadly
vaccine-preventable diseases," authors wrote.
Officials from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department did not
respond to a request for comment.
Forrest said risks highlighted by the MAHA report, such as eating
too much ultra-processed food, are real but miss the complex reality
driving trends in children's health.
“We have to step back and take some lessons from the ecological
sustainability community and say: Let’s look at the ecosystem that
kids are growing up in. And let’s start on a kind of
neighborhood-by-neighborhood, city-by-city basis, examining it,” he
said.
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