Obesity in poor children is down in New York City, up in Los Angeles, study says

Obesity in poor children is down in New York City but up in Los Angeles, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study compared obesity rates for young poor children over the last nine years in the two major US cities.

In New York, rates dropped from 19 to 16 percent, according to the Associated Press.

However, in the California city obesity rates rose from 17 percent to over 21 percent, over those years. It, then, stabilize at about 20 percent.

One reason for the changes, according to study, is that there are more Mexican-Americans low-income children in Los Angeles, the CDC said.

And obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in either Caucasian or African-American children.

After decades of alarming reports of Americans gaining weight, "we're seeing perhaps the beginning of the end of the obesity epidemic," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a statement.

Other recent studies have shown childhood obesity rates also dropped in the city of Anchorage, Alaska, Philadelphia, and Kearney, Nebraska, the AP wrote.