Does Childhood Obesity Prevention Only Work In Rich Kids?
Friday, May 29, 2015
Recent publications suggest that the increase in childhood obesity seen in the US over the past several decades may finally be leveling off – an observation happily interpreted as a sign that not all is lost and that preventive measures may be working.
However, as a paper by Ashlesha Datar and Paul Chung, just published in JAMA pediatrics, these findings may be misleading in that they hide the increasing disparities in the prevalence of childhood obesity across ethnic and social groups.
The authors analysed data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study kindergarten class (ECLS-K), consisting of two separate nationally representative cohorts recruited as kindergarteners during the 1998 to 1999 and 2010 to 2011 school years, which includes approximately 17,000 and 15,560 kindergarteners, respectively.
Between 1998 and 2010, with a nearly 20% overall increase in obesity prevalence, obesity decreased nonsignificantly for the highest quintile of socioeconomic class, increased nonsignificantly for the second-highest quintile, and increased significantly for the lowest three quintiles. The greatest increase was seen in non-Hispanic black kids.
Thus, the authors point out that not only have childhood obesity rates substantially increased during the time periods of this study, but also that this increase was accompanied by a substantial increase in socioeconomic disparities as obesity decreased in children with higher socioeconomic backgrounds but increased among children with lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Perhaps our childhood prevention measures are not reaching the kids who need them the most?
@DrSharma
Edmonton, AB
Monday, June 1, 2015
Well, think about it. It’s not easy to encourage healthy eating habits to people who are struggling. If you’re living in a food desert and/or depending on food banks for whatever meals you can get, you don’t get the luxury of choosing what you eat.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Only a personal observation but I am living in OSHA housing and one of my sisters lives in a mansion.
1) Farmers Market/Non-GMO/Delivered-to-your-door-food is infinitely more expensive. I have been to the 7-11 and I have been to Whole Foods Grocery. One ‘big cookie’ from 7-11, while it may be slightly tastier, is less than two dollars and sometimes close to one dollar. A ‘big cookie’ variant from Whole Foods, while having perhaps as many calories, almost always has more fiber and protein from ‘whole’ ingredients.
2) If I buy ‘rich people’ food I feel fuller and eat less and I also use all my ‘stamp’ money in one day leaving me the rest of the time to think of the many uses for beans and rice. If I buy ‘poor people’ food it is so tasty you can’t stop at one cookie and it’s cool that a whole bag of them is less than two dollars!