October 2026

New NCCOR White Paper Identifies Clinical Research Gaps in Pediatric Obesity Pharmacotherapy

October 2026, NCCOR

As the use and availability of obesity medications for youth continue to evolve, important questions remain about how these treatments can be most effectively and safely incorporated into pediatric obesity care. In 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Treatment of Children and Adolescents with Obesity, which recommends offering pharmacotherapy, when medically appropriate, as an adjunct to health behavior and lifestyle treatment for youth ages 12 and older with obesity. Against this rapidly evolving treatment landscape, NCCOR recently released its new white paper, Clinical Research Gaps in Pediatric Obesity Pharmacotherapy.

Over the course of a year-long workshop, multidisciplinary experts representing research and clinical care worked to understand current practice and identify research gaps that, when answered, could help health care practitioners over the next two to three years in the process and practice of prescription, maintenance, and discontinuation of GLP-1s and other obesity medications for youth, and support for their caregivers. The resulting Clinical Research Gaps in Pediatric Obesity Pharmacotherapy white paper identifies key research opportunities and priorities for advancing the evidence base on obesity medications for youth, highlighted in the following resources:

• 35 primary research questions
• Outcome to inform clinical care
• Research protocols
• Types of tools desired by clinicians

Together, NCCOR’s collection of research questions, protocols, outcomes, and tools presented in this white paper aim to guide future research and accelerate improvements in the quality and consistency of care for youth with obesity.

NCCOR thanks all of the workshop co-chairs and participants for contributing their expertise to this effort.

Read the white paper and supporting resources: https://www.nccor.org/projects/clinical-research-gaps-in-pediatric-obesity-pharmacotherapy/

Back to Top

NCCOR Toolbox: Assessing Growth Across Childhood with NCCOR

October 2026, NCCOR

Accurate measurement is essential to understanding childhood obesity, and NCCOR’s A Guide to Methods for Assessing Childhood Obesity helps researchers, practitioners, and other professionals select appropriate methods for assessing adiposity in children. The importance of appropriate measures was also highlighted during NCCOR’s recent Revisiting Rapid Infant Growth: Assessing Growth in Children Under Age 2 workshop, which explored approaches for measuring and tracking rapid growth during infancy. Together, these resources underscore the importance of using accurate, evidence-based measures to better understand growth and obesity risk across childhood. The workshop materials, including recordings and presentation slides, are now available online for those interested in learning more.

Back to Top

Nutrition & Physical Activity Policy Resources

September 2026, ChangeLab Solutions

In partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Nutrition and Physical Activity Branch (NPAB), ChangeLab Solutions supported the development of this suite of resources to advance healthy eating and active living policies. These resources are relevant to both California audiences, including those who work at local health departments (LHDs), as well as public health practitioners and community leaders in other US states.

[Source]

Back to Top

Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps

September 24, 2026, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

The 2025 Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps for 47 states, the District of Columbia (DC), and two U.S. territories show the proportion of adults with obesity. These maps are based on self-reported weight and height from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Maps are also presented by location, age, and race and ethnicity (Updated September 24, 2026). Addressing obesity through early prevention among children and young adults, as well as providing treatment for individuals of all ages, is important for improving overall health and reducing health care costs.

[Source]

Back to Top

Achieving a State of Healthy Weight 2025 Annual Report

September 10, 2026, University of Colorado Anschutz

The ASHW Report is a nationally recognized resource that tracks how states support healthy eating, active play, and obesity prevention in early childhood through licensing regulations. Led by the University of Colorado College of Nursing in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, ASHW annually evaluates licensing regulations across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Now in its 16th year, the 2025 ASHW Report, along with three updated state supplements, provides the nation’s most current assessment of how early care and education (ECE) licensing regulations align with 47 High-Impact Obesity Prevention Standards (HIOPS) derived from Caring for Our Children: Preventing Childhood Obesity, which served as the national benchmark for the 2025 review.

[Source]

Back to Top

Medically Tailored Groceries Nutrition Standards for Community-Based Organizations

September 9, 2026, Feeding America

The Medically Tailored Grocery Nutrition Standards establish a clinically grounded, operationally feasible framework for delivering nutritious, condition-appropriate food across the charitable food system. Reviewed by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and informed by national frameworks such as Coding 4 Food and insights from the Elevance Health Foundation Food as Medicine 3 (FAM3) initiative and network-wide program analysis, these standards support the prevention and management of diet-related chronic disease while strengthening alignment between food systems and healthcare.

At the core of this framework are the Healthy Eating Research (HER) Nutrition Guidelines, which rank foods based on sodium, saturated fat, and added or total sugar to assess nutrition quality. As a widely adopted system across the network, HER provides a consistent foundation for evaluating inventory, guiding procurement, and ensuring that food distributed through food banks meets defined nutrition standards.

Recognizing food banks, their partner agencies, and community-based organizations as trusted access points within local food and health systems, the standards are designed to support real-world implementation across diverse settings. Their development intentionally balanced clinical rigor with operational practicality, incorporating input from 36 food banks alongside more than 14 registered dietitians through a structured, multi-month review process. This combination of RD and non-RD perspectives ensures the standards are both clinically appropriate for individuals managing chronic conditions and adaptable to varying levels of organizational capacity across the network.

These standards provide condition-specific MTG protocols that complement clinical care, promote dietary adherence, and address barriers such as access, affordability, and cultural relevance. They serve as a unifying framework to support consistent, high-quality, and scalable Food Is Medicine programming that improves health outcomes and overall well-being.

[Source]

Back to Top

Youth Health in Focus: Findings from the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey

August 14, 2026, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Youth Health in Focus is geared toward federal, state, and local decision-makers and health and education practitioners. It provides information and stories from CDC-funded school districts about five focus areas that affect adolescent health today and into adulthood.

The five focus areas include:

• Dietary Behaviors
• Physical Activity
• Sleep
• Digital Behaviors
• Mental Health and Suicide Risks

This report presents all findings for 2-year changes and 10-year trends. For demographic differences, only select statistically significant differences are reported. More details about the results in this report are available in the Technical Notes and Data Tables.

[Source]

Back to Top

Early Childhood BMI Trajectories Linked to Higher Cardiometabolic Risk at Age 8

September 23, 2026, EurekAlert!

A new study tracking over 1,000 children from age 1 to age 8 reveals that distinct body mass index growth patterns during early childhood are associated with cardiovascular and metabolic risk at school age. The research found that children following a persistent obesity trajectory or a late-onset obesity pattern had significantly higher cardiometabolic risk scores at age 8 compared to peers with normal growth. The findings suggest that both the total amount of excess weight accumulated over time and the timing of accelerated weight gain during specific developmental windows are important for identifying children at heightened risk.

Childhood obesity predicts later cardiometabolic disease, but single-time weight measures may miss dynamic growth information. In early childhood, the timing of rapid weight gain and duration of excess weight may be as important as body mass index (BMI) at any one age. Evidence from Chinese children remains limited. We therefore examined whether repeated BMI measurements from ages 1 to 7 revealed trajectories associated with cardiometabolic risk at age 8, and further assessed cumulative and timing-specific effects.

The findings were published (DOI: 10.1007/s12519-026-01079-6) on June 21, 2026, in the World Journal of Pediatrics. Researchers from China and the United States conducted the prospective cohort study following 1072 mother-child pairs over eight years.

The research team measured children’s height and weight annually during early childhood and assessed blood pressure, fasting glucose, and lipid levels at school age. They identified several distinct BMI growth patterns. Adverse patterns—late obesity growth and persistent obesity growth—were compared with a control group showing lean or normal growth. Both adverse trajectories were associated with higher continuous cardiometabolic risk scores, with the persistent obesity group showing the strongest effect. Children with persistent obesity patterns were more likely to develop cardiometabolic risk factors by school age, with a particularly strong association with hypertension.

The researchers also examined cumulative BMI exposure and BMI change across early childhood. They assessed how much and how long BMI exceeded a reference threshold, the age at adiposity rebound, and BMI gain during specific developmental intervals. Greater cumulative excess burden, earlier adiposity rebound, and faster BMI gain during certain early childhood periods were independently linked to higher cardiometabolic risk. Notably, BMI gain during the preschool period showed the most consistent associations across outcomes, suggesting that preschool years may be an important window for early risk monitoring.

“We found that how children grow in early life—not just their weight at a single time point—tells us something meaningful about their cardiometabolic health,” the authors said. “The preschool years appear to be a critical window where accelerated BMI gain carries a stronger signal for later risk. This suggests we shouldn’t wait until school age to start monitoring; repeated growth measurements in early childhood could help identify children who might benefit from earlier intervention.”

The findings may have implications for pediatric care and public health monitoring. Rather than relying on a single BMI measurement at one age, the study supports tracking growth trajectories across repeated early childhood visits. Children who consistently show elevated BMI growth or early adiposity rebound may warrant closer monitoring and preventive support. The identification of a potentially sensitive window in early childhood suggests that interventions promoting healthy weight gain could be most impactful during this period. For clinicians, these findings reinforce the value of routine growth monitoring and suggest that growth patterns over time offer more predictive information than single-point assessments.

[Source]

Back to Top

FIU Study Finds Brain Differences Linked to Obesity Risk in Preschoolers

September 22, 2026, Florida International University

Children as young as 4 with a higher body mass index (BMI) showed differences in several brain regions involved in reward, taste and hunger, according to a new study from Florida International University. The findings suggest the relationship between obesity risk and the developing brain may begin years earlier than scientists previously realized.

Published in the Nature Portfolio journal Scientific Reports, the study is one of the first to use an advanced MRI technique to examine the relationship between obesity risk and brain development in preschool-aged children.

Childhood obesity is a growing public health concern and has been linked to a range of health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and mental health challenges. Yet researchers still know relatively little about when the relationship between body weight and the brain begins.

“Most prevention efforts begin only after a child is already showing signs of weight gain,” said Anthony Dick, professor of developmental science and cognitive neuroscience at FIU and one of the study’s senior authors. “If we can better understand when these brain-body relationships first appear, we may eventually be able to identify obesity risk earlier and develop interventions before unhealthy patterns become established.”

Researchers at FIU’s Center for Children and Families scanned the brains of 159 children ages 4 to 7, including 81 with ADHD and 78 without, using an advanced MRI technique called Restriction Spectrum Imaging (RSI). They compared the scans with several measures of body size, including BMI, waist circumference and body fat percentage.

Of all the measures the researchers evaluated, only BMI was associated with differences in the brain.

Children with a higher BMI showed differences in brain regions involved in reward, motivation, taste and craving. Researchers also found a small signal in the hypothalamus, which helps regulate hunger, though they say that finding needs to be confirmed with follow-up research.

“Previous studies have identified similar patterns in adolescents,” said Mohammadreza (Masood) Bayat, the study’s lead author and a cognitive neuroscience doctoral student at FIU. “Our findings push that timeline back by several years, making it one of the earliest investigations of how body weight and brain development may be connected. We’re not saying these brain differences are causing higher body weight, or that higher body weight is causing brain differences. This study only tells us they’re connected.”

One of the study’s most novel findings involved the insula, a brain region that had not emerged in similar studies of older children.

The researchers also expected children with ADHD to show a stronger correlation between brain changes and BMI, since ADHD has been linked to many of the same brain circuits involved in reward and to behaviors like impulsivity. Instead, children with and without ADHD showed the same overall pattern as children without ADHD.

“We honestly expected ADHD to play a bigger role,” said Paulo Graziano, professor of psychology and one of the study’s authors. “Instead, the pattern was consistent across both groups. That tells us these associations may reflect something broader about early brain development rather than ADHD specifically.”

The researchers note that the study captured only one point in time, so it cannot determine whether the brain differences came before changes in body weight, resulted from them or influenced one another over time. They emphasize the findings are not a reason for parents to change how they approach their child’s nutrition or physical activity. Rather, the study is an early step toward understanding when body weight and brain development first become connected.

Next, the team plans to continue following children over time to see whether brain differences show up before or after changes in body weight. Future studies will also pair brain imaging with direct measures of metabolism and inflammation to better understand what’s driving these early differences.

Photos and videos for media use are available via Dropbox. A media asset guide with timestamps, selected quotes and other metadata is also available.

[Source]

Back to Top

Mothers’ Poor Sleep Quality in Late Pregnancy Linked to Higher Obesity Risk in Their Children

September 22, 2026, Elsevier

New research has found that mothers with poor sleep quality in late pregnancy had babies with lower weight in the first 6 months of life, but higher weight after age 1-2 years. This effect was strongest in male infants and in babies born at term. The findings from the study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, suggest that incorporating sleep quality assessments into routine prenatal care could facilitate early identification of at-risk pregnancies, and addressing poor sleep quality could be beneficial for the health of both mother and child.

Sleep health in pregnancy and childhood obesity are two major and modifiable public health concerns. Global childhood and adolescent obesity rates have more than doubled from 1990 to 2022, now affecting more than 390 million children aged 5-19 years.

Studies have found that poor sleep health is associated with various health conditions, including diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. Human and animal studies have also suggested that pregnancy sleep quality can serve as a factor in the intergenerational transmission of obesity risk from mother to child.

Rapid weight gain during infancy is a risk factor for obesity in later childhood. Understanding the effects of pregnancy sleep health on early childhood growth trajectories could help mitigate impacts on children’s metabolic health.

Most previous research has been cross-sectional or conducted in children over 2 years old. Furthermore, the association between pregnancy sleep health and childhood obesity has not been extensively studied in Hispanic populations in the US, which have higher rates of being overweight or obese compared to other racial or ethnic groups.

This study investigated a group of 645 mother-child pairs from the prospective pregnancy cohort Maternal and Developmental Risks from Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) in Los Angeles. Researchers evaluated late-pregnancy sleep quality using the Jenkins Sleep Scale questionnaire. Height and weight of children were measured at follow-up visits at the University of Southern California clinic or abstracted from medical records.

Most mothers reported mild to moderate sleep disturbance but 26% of mothers had poor sleep quality. Children whose mothers reported the worst sleep quality had lower weights from birth to 6 months but had higher weights thereafter. At 1 year of age, the difference in weight was 346.7 grams, and the greatest difference was observed at 17 months (751.5 grams).

The study underscores the importance of maintaining good pregnancy sleep health. The findings suggest that the observed associations are primarily driven by poor late-pregnancy sleep quality and are not explained by other traditionally identified prenatal and postnatal factors such as childhood feeding practices.

Senior author Carrie V. Breton, MPH, PhD, Professor at the Bursky School of Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, says, “Our research supports the notion that exposures during critical developmental windows of pregnancy can program offspring health. Several biological mechanisms may link late-pregnancy sleep health to children’s weight trajectories. For instance, poor sleep may affect maternal or child metabolic health programming, or both, which in turn could affect neonatal fat mass distribution and lead to abnormal lipid profiles or higher inflammation. Alternatively, stress pathways associated with higher childhood obesity risk may also play a role.”

Lead author Xiaoran Yang, MPH, PhD graduate from the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, adds, “Poor sleep health in pregnancy is common and often overlooked, and our findings suggest that monitoring it in routine prenatal care could be a simple and powerful step toward healthier growth for the next generation.”

[Source]

Back to Top

Associations of Maternal Postpartum Weight Retention and Its Components With Child BMI z-Score by In Utero Exposure to Maternal Overweight/Obesity and Gestational Diabetes

September 10, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Objective

This study examined the association between maternal postpartum weight retention (PPWR) and child BMI z-score, assessed whether this relationship was modified by in utero exposure to maternal overweight/obesity or gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), and evaluated the relative contributions of gestational weight gain (GWG) and postdelivery weight change (PDWC).

Methods

This secondary analysis used data from the Health After Pregnancy (HAPi) Study and included 219 mother–child dyads. Dyads were classified into three groups based on maternal weight status and GDM during the index pregnancy: normal weight without GDM (NW-No GDM), overweight/obese without GDM (Ow/Ob-No GDM), and overweight/obese with GDM (GDM). PPWR was defined as maternal weight measured 4–10 years postpartum minus baseline pregnancy weight. GWG and PDWC were examined as components of PPWR. Adjusted moderation models tested whether associations between maternal weight change measures and child BMI z-score differed by exposure group, overall and stratified by child sex.

Results

Maternal PPWR was associated with child BMI z-score (p = 0.012), and this association differed by exposure group (interaction p = 0.030). Greater PPWR was associated with higher child BMI z-score in the NW-No GDM and Ow/Ob-No GDM groups, but not in the GDM group. GWG, but not PDWC, showed a similar pattern. The PPWR-exposure interaction was significant among girls (interaction p = 0.005), but not boys.

Conclusions

The association between maternal PPWR and child BMI z-score differed by in utero exposure group and was driven primarily by GWG, highlighting pregnancy as a potential intervention window.

[Source]

Back to Top

Associations Between Parental Beliefs About Their Child’s Weight Controllability, Negative Weight Comments, and Initiation of Weight Talk with Children

September 7, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Background

Negative parental weight talk is associated with adverse outcomes in youth. Weight controllability beliefs are linked to weight stigma, but it is unknown whether parents’ general beliefs about one’s control over their weight (general weight controllability beliefs), or their beliefs about parental control over a child’s weight (child-specific weight controllability beliefs), are associated with how and how early parents talk about their child’s weight, or whether associations differ for mothers and fathers.

Methods

US parents (N = 1936) of youth aged 10–17 completed an online survey assessing general and child-specific weight controllability beliefs, negative weight comments, and initiation of weight-related talk. Hierarchical and logistic regression analyses adjusted for sociodemographic and child-related covariates, including child current age; exploratory analyses were corrected using the Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate, and robustness was examined in prespecified sensitivity analyses.

Results

Stronger child-specific weight controllability beliefs were associated with more frequent negative weight comments (β = 0.13, p < 0.001); this association held for both mothers and fathers and across all sensitivity analyses and was stronger among parents whose children were trying to gain weight. Child-specific beliefs were also associated with earlier initiation of weight-related talk (β = 0.05, p = 0.042), but this association was small, weakened in sensitivity analyses, and should be considered preliminary.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that child-specific weight controllability beliefs rather than general weight controllability beliefs were associated with negative weight talk and may inform future parent-focused education on the multifactorial nature of body weight and supportive family approaches for weight-related communication.

[Source]

Back to Top

Obesity Prevalence in the United States among 6 − 17-Year-Old Children and Adolescents: Measured vs. Parent-Reported Height and Weight from Two National Surveys, 2015–2018

September 2, 2026, Childhood Obesity

Background

Previous comparison of obesity prevalence from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) found differences between measured and parent-reported estimates for children and adolescents. The NSCH has undergone major methodological changes prompting re-examination of the correspondence between NSCH and NHANES obesity prevalence among children/adolescents ages 6–17 years.

Objective

To compare obesity prevalence estimates among children/adolescents ages 6–17 years derived from parent-reported height/weight in NSCH (2016–2018) and measured height/weight in NHANES (2015–2018).

Methods

Obesity prevalence, height, weight, and body-mass-index for age among children/adolescents ages 6–17 years from both surveys were compared by age, sex, and race/ethnicity using absolute and relative measures of difference.

Results

Overall obesity prevalence was lower using parent-reported data than measured data (16.9% vs. 20.1%, p < 0.01). Estimates were similar for children ages 6–11 years (19.1% vs. 19.5%) but reported estimates were lower for adolescents ages 12–17 years (14.8% vs. 20.8%), particularly among females ages 12–13 and males ages 14–15 years. Reported prevalence was generally similar or lower across racial/ethnic groups, except among non-Hispanic Black children ages 6–9 years. Reported height, weight, and body-mass-index were typically lower than measured values.

Conclusions

Parent-reported data produced similar obesity estimates for children ages 6–11 years but underestimated adolescent obesity and should be interpreted cautiously, especially for detailed subgroups.

[Source]

Back to Top