New Measure of Children’s Weight – and More Related Data on the Way
Kidsdata.org recently added a new indicator of children’s health: Rate of Overweight/Obese Children in Low-Income Public Health Programs.
These data are collected from participants in the Child Health and Disability Prevention Program, which serves Medi-Cal recipients and children/youth with family incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty level. The data represent approximately 22% of low-income children in California.
Because the population captured is so specific, it is important that users do not over-generalize their conclusions. When looking at this particular population of kids, however, results indicate that in 2009, among California children served by low-income public health programs, about 42% 5-to-19 year-olds, and 33% of 2-to-4 year-olds, were overweight or obese. Although these rates were similar to those in previous years, they indicate persistently high levels of weight-related health risk. Specifically, children who are overweight or obese are at risk of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, and type 2 diabetes, among other serious physical problems. Type 2 diabetes is of particular concern, as it now is being found in children at increasing rates. Overweight and obese children also are more likely to have weight problems in adulthood.
On kidsdata.org, measures of weight also include the percentage of public school students in grades 5, 7, and 9 at a healthy weight (that is, students who are neither overweight nor underweight); these indicators are offered at a school district level by grade, race/ethnicity, and gender. Kidsdata.org also has related data on physical fitness, including percentages of students meeting all fitness and aerobic endurance standards.
Later this year, we should have more data on children’s weight through a partnership with the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, which is analyzing California child overweight rates by city and county.
As we bolster our offerings of data related to children’s weight, we also are interested in other sources of reliable weight/obesity data. If you know of any, please contact us at [email protected].
Posted by kidsdata.org
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 10:28 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.