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Arkansas childhood obesity rates stall, report says Thursday, Aug 17, 2006 By Betsy Turner Arkansas news Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday hailed a slight decline in the number of Arkansas children who are overweight or at risk for being overweight as the end to rising obesity rates in the state. Huckabee said the results of the 2005-2006 annual body mass index assessments showed that 37.5 percent of schoolchildren were overweight or at risk for being overweight, compared to 38.1 percent two years ago. Of the children assessed, 20.4 percent were overweight, a decline of half a percentage point. The number of children at risk of being overweight dropped .1 percent to 17.1 percent. The assessments, which are required under Act 1220 of 2003, were performed on 433,808 children. About 14 percent of students were not assessed because of physical disability, absence from school, refusal to participate or other reasons. Huckabee said the numbers mean the rise of childhood obesity, which he likened to a "runaway train," has stopped and is possibly on a downward path. "We've put the brakes on," Huckabee said at a new conference announcing the latest results. "Now its time to turn around that train and do what we need to do to make our children moving toward being the healthiest children in America rather than moving toward being the unhealthiest. "Today, we have the data to show that Arkansas leads the way in doing just that." Huckabee attributed the changes to steps the state has taken to improve school nutrition. Restrictions on vending machine offerings at schools, healthier lunch menus, providing BMI assessments to parents and more awareness among families and communities all contributed to the encouraging numbers, the governor said. Huckabee, who is term-limited and considering a run for president after he leaves office in January, has been a national advocate for healthy living since losing 110 pounds. He has written a book, "Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork." His political action committee, Hope for America, was formerly called Healthy America. Joe Thompson, Arkansas' chief health officer and director of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, said the next step is finding out how to tailor state health programs to combat obesity in high risk groups. The center assembles and analyzes the BMI data. Thompson said black and Hispanic children consistently have more weight problems, which he said should be studied more closely to understand how to specifically target them. He said that in the future the ACHI would be able to study the differences between those specific groups and other changes in the data by compiling BMI data from individual children over time into a long term analysis. The compilation will be the largest longitudinal analysis of childhood obesity in the world, he said. |
