NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—The nation’s acting surgeon general said Thursday that the country should be embarrassed by the percentage of children who are overweight or obese despite a recent report showing their numbers are leveling off.

“They’re leveling off way too high. We’re still triple what we were in 1980,” acting Surgeon General Steven Galson said at a ceremony at the base of the Big Dam Bridge in North Little Rock. “That’s 9 million children over the age of six that are overweight, and that should be embarrassing to every parent, to every teacher and every leader in this community and all around the country.”

Galson presented a Healthy Youth for Healthy Future Champion Award to Eagle Mountain Health and International Studies Magnet Elementary School. At the ceremony, Arkansas was also recognized as one of five states to win the national President’s Challenge, a program to encourage Americans to be more active.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month that the numbers of overweight and obese children held steady after rising without interruption since 1980. In 2003-04 and 2005-06, roughly 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese, the study said.

Galson said during the ceremony that he was pleased to see the epidemic of child obesity slowing, but said more must be done to reverse the trend.

“It’s possible that our kids in this generation are going to live shorter than we are, and that should be very disturbing to all of us,” he said.

Galson praised steps that Arkansas took to address childhood obesity, including efforts to track the body mass indices of schoolchildren. The state also in 2003 set new nutrition and physical activity standards as part of the anti-obesity effort.

Legislators relaxed the BMI standards last year. Pupils now are measured in kindergarten and in even-numbered grades, with high school juniors and seniors exempt.

Galson said the state is a leader in finding ways to combat childhood obesity through measures such as the BMI tracking.

“It’s very innovative and it’s something I think will help communities compete with each other, see how they stand and is really important,” Galson said.

Galson said he thinks the changes made by the Legislature last year make it easier to implement the BMI tracking and still helps gather critical data on obesity.

Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson said the state is currently gathering data from the BMI tracking and will release a report on the latest figures later this year. Thompson said the state has not seen any increases in students opting out of the tracking since the changes took effect.

“I think we have a complete picture, but instead of having a complete picture every year it’ll take us two years at a time now to have a complete picture,” Thompson said. “That still is important because with half the kids we can track progress and we’ll know what communities are doing breakthrough work.”