Associated Press
CHICAGO — American children are still getting fatter, and at an alarming rate, with the percentage of significantly overweight black and Hispanic youngsters more than doubling over 12 years and climbing 50 percent among whites, a study shows.
By 1998, nearly 22 percent of black children ages 4 to 12 were overweight, as were 22 percent of Hispanic youngsters and 12 percent of whites, according to researchers who analyzed data from a national survey.
In 1986, the same survey showed that about 8 percent of black children, 10 percent of Hispanic youngsters and 8 percent of whites were significantly overweight.
"Prior studies show it took 30 years for the overweight prevalence to double in American children," said Dr. Richard Strauss, a pediatrician at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. This study should be "a call to action," said Strauss, who conducted the research with Harold Pollack of the University of Michigan.
Among the reasons given for the increase: Children are spending much more time watching television, using computers and playing video games, and busy parents are relying more on fast food to feed their families.
Also, black and Hispanic youngsters are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods where outdoor exercise may be unsafe and where the quickest, easiest foods may not be the most nutritious, Strauss said.
Overweight was defined as having a body-mass index higher than 95 percent of youngsters of the same age and sex, based on growth charts from the 1960s to 1980s. By some criteria, that would be considered obese. Body-mass index is a measurement of weight relative to height.
The study was based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which followed a nationally representative sample of 8,270 youngsters from 1986 to 1998. The findings appear in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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