The U.S. may have another breakthrough in stabilizing childhood obesity with a recent study showing more and more adolescents are eating healthier and watching less TV, USA Today reported.

According to a new study published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, children and teens have made a big change in diet and activities over the past decade. From 2001 to 2009, they have become more physically active, are eating more fruits and vegetables and are not skipping breakfast as often.

"It's only recently, in the past decade, that some studies have begun to see some leveling off" of various obesity traits, said co-author of the study Ronald Iannotti, chairman of the department of exercise and health sciences at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

The study was a data analysis of 35,000 nationally representative children and teens aged 11 to 16. Collected in 2001, 2005 and 2009, the kids reported on their physical activity, diet and height and weight, which the researchers used to calculate body mass index (BMI).

Iannotti called the trend "very encouraging" and noted he and his colleagues noticed it in kids younger than 11. According to the study, the first half of the time period showed an increase with the latter half showing sings of average BMI lowering into the "normal" range.

While many subjects did not get the recommended 60 minutes of exercise per day, the amount of days in which they exercised increased. Also going up was the amount of fruit consumption per week, from two to four days a week in 2001 to five or six in 2009.

Vegetable consumption rose from about two to four days per week to nearly five and soft drinks decreased to four per week in 2009, down from five in 2001.

"Over the previous decades, the pattern had been that kids were getting less physical activity, and it's been very hard to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption," Iannotti says. "We've got a long way to go, but the good news is that those are increasing."