THURSDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) — In what might serve as a
hopeful sign for all children in the United States, a new study finds that
obesity rates among New York City‘s school children have dropped slightly
in the past five years, particularly among the youngest.
Although the absolute decline in the obesity rate is only 1.2 percent,
it’s still the largest drop seen yet in any major U.S. city, the
researchers noted, and many of the programs that New York City health and
education officials implemented to combat rising childhood obesity rates
are being tried in other parts of the country.
“This is really good news, but there are still one in five children in
grades K-8 who are obese, which is still a huge number of children,” said
study author Magdalena Berger, a city research scientist in the New York
City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “We are on the right track,
but we still have a very long way to go.”
Obesity among children has been increasing since the 1970s, Berger
said. “In the last decade, nationally, we have seen a leveling off of
obesity, but this is the first well-documented decline in obesity among
children that we have seen.”
The drop in obesity is statistically significant, because of the large
number of children in New York City‘s public schools, Berger said.
“Whether or not it’s actually meaningful is another question,” she
added.
“I think it’s meaningful in the sense that it’s not going up, and
that’s good news, it’s not staying stable, and that’s good news,” Berger
said. “I would characterize this as a slow sustained drop over five years;
it’s not a dramatic drop.”
Although the reasons for the decline in obesity among these school
children isn’t clear, Berger speculated that policies implemented by the
New York City departments of health and education, along with more public
awareness of the problem, may have played a role.
Study co-author Cathy Nonas, director of Physical Activity and
Nutrition Programs in New York City’s Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene, said several changes in city schools probably contributed to the
drop in obesity rates.
“There are significant changes in school food,” she said. “There is no
whole milk in the schools anymore, it’s only 1 percent and the chocolate
milk is skim and low sugar,” she said. “That saved 4.5 billion calories,
just by making that change.”
In addition, food served in schools has reduced fat and no trans fats
and reduced salt, and the level of fiber has been increased, Nonas said.
Drinks and snack foods sold in schools are also healthier, she said.
Similar policies were also instituted in early child-care centers, she
added.
Also, the city has trained K-5 teachers on how to increase physical
activity in the classroom, Nonas said.
“It’s a layering effect” that all contributed to reducing obesity
rates, Nonas believes. These and similar policies are being implemented
throughout the country, she noted.
The report was published in the Dec. 16 issue of the U.S. Centers for
Diseases Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report.
For the study, Berger’s team used data on the more than 900,000
children in kindergarten to eighth grade in New York City public schools.
The city’s school system collects fitness data on these students every
year, Berger said.
The researchers found the obesity for these children, aged 5 through
14, dropped from 21.9 percent in 2006-07 to 20.7 percent in 2010-11, a
little more than a 1 percent decline among kids overall.
The biggest drop was among children aged 5 to 6, from 20.2 percent in
2006-07 to 18.2 percent in 2010-11, they noted.
These declines in obesity were seen in all race and ethnic groups, the
researchers added.
Obesity expert Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research
Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said that “this report,
showing a decline in obesity among New York City school children over the
past five years is, to be sure, a glass half full. But I wouldn’t get
carried away with the celebrations just yet.”
The absolute decline in the overall obesity rate is roughly 1 percent
in five years, he noted. “At that rate of progress, it would take a
century to fully reverse the damage done over the past several decades.
The rate of obesity is still over 20 percent, and the gains are
uneven.”
This is a window to a very small part of a nationwide obesity problem,
Katz added. “The resources of New York City may be sufficient to produce
some good news, but that is not generalizable. We have a long way to go,
and will need to build diligently on these modest gains to get there,” he
said.
“Obesity is still a major health issue in children,” Dr. Achiau
Ludomirsky, chief of pediatric cardiology at NYU Langone Medical Center,
New York City, added in a statement. “We can definitely see that the
decline in obesity among [New York City] school children is the result of
early intervention for better diet, opportunity for physical fitness and
the education of students and parents. It is a three-tier effect.”
What kids eat and learn away from school is also key. “We can’t
reduce obesity levels without working closely with the families of
students to help them offer better diet options at home and limit a
child’s time in front of the television, computers and video games,”
Ludomirsky said.
“But we still have a long way to go,” he stressed. “If we don’t address
the childhood obesity epidemic more proactively right now, it will become
a major health issue for the next generation of Americans.”
More information
For more on childhood obesity, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-sees-drop-child-obesity-other-cities-same-210409857.html