Prevent Disease.com - Children's Obesity Rates May Be Worse Than Thought



		Children's Obesity Rates May Be Worse Than Thought Excerpt By Charnicia E. Huggins, Reuters Health NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The prevalence of obesity may be even higher than the 10 percent previously reported among children in the U.S., according to a team of Alabama and Texas researchers. They found that 15.5 percent of nearly 2,000 black, white and Hispanic boys and girls enrolled in Head Start programs in Alabama and Texas were overweight. In a second group of 1,585 third-grade students enrolled in a school-based fruit and vegetable promotion program in Alabama, nearly 25 percent were found to be overweight -- a rate nearly double that previously reported among Alabama youth, report Michelle Feese of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her colleagues. The higher number of overweight kids in the Head Start study was similar among boys and girls of all races studied -- black, white and Hispanic. And among the third-graders, just as many children from high-income families as from low-income ones were overweight. The findings are published in a research letter in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Although previous studies have found that obesity and other health conditions are more prevalent among high-risk groups with lower incomes and those who live in the South, the obesity rates found in this study are even greater than one would expect, given these factors, Feese said. She told Reuters Health that childhood obesity at such a higher rate than is normally seen in these groups suggests that the nation's obesity epidemic could be "even worse" than previously thought. SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association 2003;289:1780-1781. Additional Resources Child Obesity Prevention Program "Public Health Crisis, Prevention as a Cure" Related articles on Child Obesity or Childhood Obesity Related articles on Overweight Children Reference Source 89 For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".