Childhood Obesity

A national epidemic

Highmark Healthy High 5 is committed to promoting nutritious eating and weight control. According to the Childhood Obesity Action Network, these key points apply to Pennsylvania's children and adolescents:

• Approximately 29.3% of Pennsylvania children ages 10-17 years (are considered overweight or obese according to BMI-or-age standards.

• Pennsylvania children with public health insurance have an overweight/obese prevalence rate of 31.2%, roughly two percentage points higher than the rate for privately insured children (28.8%).

• 85 percent of children get less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and a majority of intake comes from the consumption of French fries and ketchup. (USDA, 2002)

• Once a person becomes overweight, weight reduction and weight maintenance are extremely difficult to achieve, so prevention is the most effective solution to the problem of overweight and obesity. (Pennsylvania Dept of Health, 2002)

• Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. (NIH, 2002)

• Students who eat a nutritious meal concentrate better, attend school more regularly, are less aggressive, and show improved behavior overall. (DeRoose, E. and T. Fitzpatrick. School Children: Inactive and Overweight — An Alarming Trend. EpiNorth. 2002)

• Studies show that school breakfast promotes healthier eating to fight obesity; improves students' achievement, behavior and test scores; and reduces absenteeism, tardiness and visits to the school nurse. (Food research access center, 2005)

Recent news about childhood obesity

Failing the obesity test: Exercise can help Americans confront their fat
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
July 12, 2010
Want to lose weight? Exercise. Help kick depression? Again, exercise. Increase productivity? Ditto. Sleep better? Improve your quality of life after cancer? Even have a better sex life? Exercise, exercise, exercise. With all those benefits — and more — why are Americans getting fatter?

Intervention lowered obesity rate in youth at high diabetes risk, HEALTHY study finds
Media-Newswire.com
July 2010
An intervention in middle schools lowered the obesity rate in students at highest risk for type 2 diabetes, those who started out overweight or obese in sixth grade, an NIH-funded study has found.

Doctors focus on kids' blood pressure
The Wall Street Journal
July 8, 2010
Amid the world-wide obesity epidemic and broader concerns about improving heart health, blood pressure has emerged as an important question — for kids of any weight. Rising rates of hypertension among overweight kids is driving the concern, but genetics and rare medical problems also may be triggers. While high-blood pressure is generally considered an adult medical problem, its increasing prevalence among children and teenagers is putting many young people on an early trajectory for heart attacks, strokes and other serious problems. "The foundation of cardiovascular disease develops during childhood," says Nathalie Farpour-Lambert, who heads the pediatric exercise medicine and obesity care program at University Hospitals of Geneva, in Switzerland. "There is evidence that from the age of 4 we can see the first signs of atherosclerosis," Farpour-Lambert says. "Forty years later, it results in coronary heart disease." Just as with adults, a large portion of kids in potential trouble don't even know it. "It's an important health issue in youth and it's getting worse instead of better," says Reginald Washington, a pediatric cardiologist and chief medical officer at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, in Denver.

USDA to revamp School Meat Safety Program
USA Today
May 15, 2010
The U.S. Agriculture Department will require all ground beef purchased for the National School Lunch Program to adhere to new safety standards after July 1. The program supplies ground beef, chicken and other food for more than 31 million schoolchildren.

White House obesity plan mixes carrots with sticks
Wall Street Journal
May 12, 2010
The White House is calling on food makers to curb marketing of unhealthy foods to children, part of a broad assault against childhood obesity. The recommendation is part of an 120-page report that outlines steps to fight the national epidemic. One in every three children ages 2-19 is overweight or obese, the report says. First Lady Michelle Obama has taken up childhood obesity as her signature cause.

Study finds soda pop sales tied to obesity in Allegheny County
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 6, 2010
If Allegheny County added a tax of 1 cent per ounce on sugary soft drinks, it would cut consumption up to 8 percent. It would also produce an extra $54 million in revenue that could be plowed back into anti-obesity efforts. That's the conclusion reached by 21 undergraduate students at Carnegie Mellon University, mostly seniors in the departments of Engineering and Public Policy or Social and Decision Sciences.

Obese kids more vulnerable to bullies
CNN.com
May 3, 2010
Children in Grades 3 through 6 who are obese are more likely to be bullied than their normal-weight peers, a new study has found.

Childhood obesity: A generation at risk
The Patriot-News
The Patriot-News has a four-week series examining the issue of childhood obesity. It began April 18, 2010. It looks at the importance of nutrition and exercise, and what schools are doing — some with grants from the state Department of Health's Active Schools initiative or the Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge — to get kids moving during the academic day.

• Childhood obesity: A generation at risk (April 18, 2010)
• Childhood obesity: Healthy eating is key to combating weight (April 25, 2010)
• Combating childhood obesity: Schools offer kids exercise, education and health assessments (May 2, 2010)
• Childhood obesity: Motivation to exercise is hard to come by (May 9, 2010)

Michelle Obama: You can't mandate healthy eating
ABC News
March 17, 2010
First Lady Michelle Obama compared her nation-wide child obesity campaign to the campaign to require Americans to wear seatbelts that culturally people have to be ready to make the shift without a mandate.

Schools wage weight war
Pittburgh Tribune-Review
March 4, 2010
In Pennsylvania, nearly one-third of all children in kindergarten through 12th grades were overweight or obese during the 2007-08 school year, the latest figures available, according to the state Department of Health. Obesity in children is based on height, weight and gender. "This is a statewide problem, a statewide epidemic," said state Secretary of Health Everette James. In response, the state and federal government and others such as Highmark Inc. have been supporting programs to promote nutrition and physical activity. Highmark launched Highmark Healthy High 5 to improve children's health by focusing on nutrition, physical activity, self-esteem, grieving and bullying. The five-year $100 million project targets 49 counties in Western and Central Pennsylvania and has reached more than 480,000 children. Since 2006, Highmark has spent $30 million to promote good nutrition and physical activity through such programs as KidShape and Highmark Health eTools for Schools.

Does obesity rehab for kids work?
Time Magazine
March 1, 2010
In the past 30 years, obesity rates among U.S. children have more than tripled. Antiobesity legislation has taken aim at environmental factors that have contributed to the epidemic, and Michelle Obama's new Let's Move campaign to end childhood obesity will likely inspire further changes in the coming years. But while healthier school lunches and public-service announcements may help future generations stay fit, they won't make already overweight children thin. Our national dialogue focuses on obesity prevention, but what do we do for kids who have already gained the weight?

Child obesity risks death at early age, study finds
February 11, 2010
The New York Times
A rare study that tracked thousands of children through adulthood found the heaviest youngsters were more than twice as likely as the thinnest to die prematurely, before age 55, of illness or a self-inflicted injury.

3 simple steps can cut childhood obesity
LiveScience
February 8, 2010
A new study finds three household routines lower the risk of obesity in children: having family dinners, getting enough sleep and limiting weekday TV time.