--- title: Obesity in America: More Than Half of Kids May Be Obese by 35 description: More than half of kids in the U.S. may be obese by the time they turn 35, according to a new study about obesity in America canonical: https://time.com/5040902/childhood-obesity-in-america/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-29T22:00:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T18:23:02.331Z article:section: Health og:title: More Than Half of American Kids May Be Obese by 35 og:description: About 38% of American adults are currently obese og:url: https://time.com/5040902/childhood-obesity-in-america/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e0256a0d96d021b/6988c12fbc6cfc8c573e0bbd/time-health-stock-weight-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5100 og:image:height: 2869 og:image:alt: time-health-stock-weight-loss og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: More Than Half of American Kids May Be Obese by 35 twitter:description: About 38% of American adults are currently obese twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e0256a0d96d021b/6988c12fbc6cfc8c573e0bbd/time-health-stock-weight-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # More Than Half of American Kids May Be Obese by 35 > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Nov 29, 2017 10:00 PM UTC  Feet standing on a scale with toes pointed upwards Feet standing on a scale with toes pointed upwards Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Nov 29, 2017 10:00 PM UTC Without some serious changes, the majority of U.S. children may be obese by the time they reach age 35, according to a new study. Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health used data from the CDC andfive longitudinal studies, accounting for 41,567 children and adults in all, to map out height and weight trajectories for a population of 1 million aging kids. They ran 1,000 different simulations to reach a prediction. Based on those projections, which were published Wednesday in the _New England Journal of Medicine_, the researchers estimate that 57% of children who are currently between ages 2 and 19 will be obese by the age of 35, if current trends continue. Today, about [38% of American adults](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm) age 20 and older have obesity. “On current trends, obesity is going to be a problem for most kids as they grow older,” says Zach Ward, the study’s lead author and a PhD candidate in health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We really need to start thinking about really scaling up prevention efforts.” The researchers also found that while childhood obesity is a risk factor for adult obesity, plenty of normal-weight children are still at risk of developing obesity later on. In fact, the team found that the majority of obese 35-year-olds were not obese as children. **MORE**: [40% of Cancers Are Linked to Being Overweight](http://time.com/4970989/obesity-overweight-cancer/) The study suggests that curtailing childhood obesity could have a large impact on public health, particularly given the evidence that weight issues during adolescence tend to stick around into adulthood. “Just because a child is at a healthy weight, that’s certainly a good thing, but we need to ensure that they maintain a healthy weight as they grow older,” Ward says. “It also points to the importance of early interventions”—such as school nutrition programs, reducing the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and limiting screen time—”for children who already have obesity.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5040902/childhood-obesity-in-america/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5040902/childhood-obesity-in-america/"},"headline":"More Than Half of American Kids May Be Obese by 35","datePublished":"2017-11-29T22:00:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T18:23:02.331Z","description":"More than half of kids in the U.S. may be obese by the time they turn 35, according to a new study about obesity in America","url":"https://time.com/5040902/childhood-obesity-in-america/","keywords":["Obesity","Harvard","Research","childhood obesity","obese","onetime","healthytime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e0256a0d96d021b/6988c12fbc6cfc8c573e0bbd/time-health-stock-weight-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e0256a0d96d021b/6988c12fbc6cfc8c573e0bbd/time-health-stock-weight-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"time-health-stock-weight-loss","caption":"Caucasian woman's feet standing on scale TIME health stock","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/obesity/","name":"Obesity"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5040902/childhood-obesity-in-america/","name":"More Than Half of American Kids May Be Obese by 35"}}]}] ```