he research investigators said that the prevalence of overweight in LAC public school children far exceeds the Healthy People 2010 target of 5 percent. Nationally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the prevalence of overweight is slightly more than 15 percent.
The prevalence of overweight was higher among boys (23.7 percent) than girls (17.4 percent). Overweight prevalence was inversely related to grade level (24.6 percent among 5th graders, 19.9 percent among 7th graders, and 15.7 percent among 9th graders.)
Nolan Lee, M.D., of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, CDC, assigned to the LA Department of Health Services, lead author of the study, explained that the data reported by the LAC school system on BMI was calculated from height and weight measurements taken on children who were tested in the spring of 2001. Overweight was classified as BMI at the 95th percentile and above, using growth charts developed by CDC.
In 1995, the California State Legislature mandated physical fitness testing of all public school children in grades 5, 7, and 9. The California program consisted of a battery of standardized physical fitness tests that included height and weight measurements. The researchers used the data from the 2001 California Fitness Testing Program for their results.
In terms of ethnicity, the prevalence of overweight was highest among Latino children (25.2 percent), followed by Pacific Islander (19.9 percent), black (19.3 percent), white (13 percent), and Asian American (11.9 percent) students.
The authors noted that, although studies had shown an epidemic rise in overweight among children in the U.S., little data was available to assess the status of overweight among local youth populations.