Rates of childhood obesity in the U.S. appear to have leveled off after a 25-year increase, results of a new federal survey show. Unfortunately, this is not actually good news. I can hardly see the "glimmer of hope" that Dr. David Ludwig, director of the childhood obesity program at Children’s Hospital in Boston, talked about in a recent interview with NYT.

Researchers found that 16.3 percent of children were obese and that 11.3 percent of them were considered extremely obese. They also found 15.6 percent of children were overweight, which means about 32 of children, or 23 million, are overweight or obese.

The fact is that obesity rates are very high and the new data which shows they did not drop despite efforts to curb unhealthy eating habits and educate people about the deadly dangers associated with obesity. Childhood obesity has become a major reason of concern, as most of the obese children are more likely to develop obesity-related diseases.

The lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cynthia Ogden, is in fact probably much closer to the truth when she thinks that we may have reached "some sort of saturation in terms of the proportion of the population who are genetically susceptible to obesity in this environment."

Moreover, a study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina and published last month in the journal Dynamic Medicine showed children having a sedentary lifestyle are up to six times likelier to be at serious risk of heart disease later in life than active peers.

Obesity causes a wide range of health problems, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, sleep apnea and osteoarthritis, among many others, including an increased risk of cancer. People with a BMI of over 32 are associated with a doubled risk of death.