Obesity studies (what we're going to do about it!) and kids interviews today.

posted by Patty James @ 5:16am, Tuesday 25 May 2010.

Every morning I awake to many emails from organizations that I subscribe to to keep me up to date on new studies and information. The following is of particular interest as it pertains to kids and obesity. Nothing said is surprising and I'm sure you'll agree. What you and I are getting a handle on now, and this from the kids themselves, is what can we do about it. We all know now that kids want an apple (almost every kids has said this!) when they want a snack. They want to understand their bodies and nutrition labels. They want to learn to cook and basically they want to be educated. That's exactly what our programs will include when this journey is complete. Here is a brief summary of the studies:
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Three articles summarize the state of obesity in children in the United States, including state-by-state analyses, ethnic differences, and the effect of the built environment.    
Three recent papers from the same group describe epidemiological data on childhood obesity in the United States [5-7].   
 
Singh et al report [4] state-by-state analyses of overweight and obesity in 2007. Sixteen percent of U.S. children were obese and 31.6% overweight.  However, significant variation in overweight prevalence occurs between states:  23.1% of the children in Utah were overweight while 44.5% of the children in Mississippi were overweight.  Almost half of the differences in rate are attributed to the built environment (see Nutrialerts Obesity and the Built Environment and [2, 3, 6]).
 
In a second report, the authors use the same data to analyze differences in obesity and overweight between different ethnic and socioeconomic groups in the U.S. [7].  Obesity prevalence increased 23 – 33% for children from low education and income and higher unemployment households.  Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, and American Indian children had 3.0 – 3.8 times higher odds of overweight than Asian children.
 
The third report described the negative effects of the social and built environment [6] on obesity rates.   The social environment in this study included unsafe neighborhoods, garbage/litter, poor/dilapidated housing, vandalism and the built environment included no sidewalks, no parks/playgrounds, no recreation centers, no library/book mobile.  Among the many results, the authors found ~30 – 60% higher odds and two to four times the risk of obesity and overweight among children living in these types of neighborhoods.  Girls ages 10 – 11 were particularly vulnerable.  Substantial ethnic variations were also found.   While this is an important study, the definitions of “built environment” are specific for this article.   A recent meta-analyses described the many different parameters that this field uses to describe and study the local environment and how it affects the risk of obesity [1] .
 
References
 
1.         Feng J, Glass TA, Curriero FC, Stewart WF, and Schwartz BS. The built environment and obesity: a systematic review of the epidemiologic evidence. Health Place (2010) 16(2): p. 175-90
2.         Galvez MP, Pearl M, and Yen IH. Childhood obesity and the built environment. Curr Opin Pediatr (2010) 22(2): p. 202-7
3.         Razani N and Tester J. Childhood obesity and the built environment. Pediatr Ann (2010) 39(3): p. 133-9
4.         Singh GK, Kogan MD, and van Dyck PC. Changes in State-Specific Childhood Obesity and Overweight Prevalence in the United States From 2003 to 2007. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. (2010) 164(7)
5.         Singh GK, Kogan MD, and Yu SM. Disparities in obesity and overweight prevalence among US immigrant children and adolescents by generational status. J Community Health (2009) 34(4): p. 271-81
6.         Singh GK, Siahpush M, and Kogan MD. Neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, built environments, and childhood obesity. Health Aff (Millwood) (2010) 29(3): p. 503-12
7.         Singh GK, Siahpush M, and Kogan MD. Rising social inequalities in US childhood obesity, 2003-2007. Ann Epidemiol (2010) 20(1): p. 40-52
 
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This afternoon I interview kids and I look forward to that! Check back later tonight for their photos and more information.

Also, you will be seeing some changes on the web site very soon! We are adding a tab with our 'Collaboration Community' where we will share information and also there will be a new store for our 'Partners.' Lots of exciting new information coming soon with our eyes on program development.

More later today...