Childhood Obesity A Public Health Crisis for West Virginia

A group that screens West Virginia children for obesity says the perennial problem shows no sign of abating: About 29% still qualify for the label, meaning they’re heavier than 95% of the national norm for children their age and height.

Public health officials tell The Charleston Gazette that’s likely to translate to chronic diseases later in life, and more needs to be done now to address the problem.

WVU pediatric cardiologist Bill Neal his team have weighed and measured more than 135,000 kindergarteners and fifth-graders in all 55 counties since 1998.

In 2010-11, they found 29% of 5th-graders were obese, 26% had high cholesterol and 24% had high blood pressure.

Many were in the early stages of type 2 diabetes, a condition that can be prevented with exercise and healthy diet.

Some experts are baffled by the lack of concern.

“Why aren’t parents in the streets? If that many fifth-graders suddenly developed a deadly condition like bird flu, parents would be standing in courthouses all over the state demanding that something be done,” said West Virginia University sports and exercise physiology professor Sam Zizzi.

“It’s happening so slowly and invisibly, it doesn’t make headlines,” he said. “We’ve gotten used to it, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.”

Obese children are at risk for heart disease, diabetes and other problems, and Jamie Jeffrey said she’s seeing too many of them at Charleston Area Medical Center’s Women and Children’s Hospital.

“We’re seeing hundred-pound 3-year-olds who can’t walk,” she said.

But heavy also appears to be increasingly normal.

Jeffrey and her staff looked at their 9-year-old patients and found 49% are either overweight or obese.

Many will grow up to suffer deadly conditions, she said, perhaps heart attacks in their 30s and 40s.

“It’s ultimately going to lead to them dying younger than we are,” she said.

Nidia Henderson, wellness director of the West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency, calls childhood obesity a “public health emergency.”

When Neal’s team first started collecting data, “a lot of people didn’t believe the problem was that bad,” she said. “Now it’s hard not to see it.”

Click to See the Results

Results by County

They don’t see that the problem is because kids sit on a bus to go to school, sit in school; after 6 hours of school, they get on a bus, sit, go home.  In the winter, it’s about dark.  They sit in front of TV or computers (or smart phones), maybe sit and do homework, and go to bed.

Meanwhile, they eat as much or more than people did when they walked to and from school, had time to play outside, and even did some work like haul firewood or feed chickens. Most kids get no exercise.

Look at the calorie consumption of kids who snack on prepared snacks before, during and after school!  A lumberjack doesn’t need that many calories.

Now, with the push to send kids to school younger and younger, kids get fat faster and earlier.  Society caused this mess when they took the responsibililty for raising children away from parents and gave it to governments!

My 11 year old is overweight. He was completely on track with his size until he started school. By his second year (Kindergarten), he had started to get heavier. I agree with the idea of the time spent on the bus, but what about recess and PE? The kids in Gilmer County get PE two or three times a week for about 40 minutes - minus the 10 to 15 minutes they spend changing in and out of gym shoes and going to the bathroom. Then they have one substantial break a day after lunchtime. Children can learn as much by doing as by sitting in front of a computer for 90 minutes a day. Our public schools are robbing our kids in so many ways…...
And for anyone who’s wondering….I don’t give my kids a lot of junk food. They eat food we canned from our garden in the winter and fresh food from the garden in the summer.
Kids just don’t get out and play like they used to.