Recent years have ushered in a wellness movement that emphasizes body positivity and holistic health over thinness and crash diets. But new federal data suggest that messaging hasn’t fully changed behavior yet. In fact, the report shows that more American teenagers are trying to lose weight than in years past.
From 2013 to 2016, almost 38% of American adolescents ages 16 to 19 said they had tried to lose weight during the past year, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. That’s up from about a quarter of adolescents who said the same a decade ago, according to previous research.
