Features
One-Quarter of JK Students Are Overweight or at Risk, Study Finds
Long-term project tracks Ontario children from age four to eight
BY RACHELLE COOPER
About 25 per cent of Ontario's junior kindergartners are overweight or at risk for being overweight, and the percentage increases as children get older, says Prof. Susan Evers, Family Relations and Applied Nutrition. In addition, children who are overweight or at risk for being overweight in JK are six times more likely to be overweight four years later, she says.
These findings, obtained from the first long-term study of four- to eight-year-olds, were recently published in the Journal of American College Nutrition.
Evers and three colleagues took body mass index (BMI) measurements of 760 children from JK to Grade 3. To be considered overweight, a child had to have a BMI above the 95th percentile.
“You would expect that only five per cent of the children would fall into that category,” says Evers. “What we found was that, in junior kindergarten, it was close to 10 per cent and that it steadily increased up to 15 per cent by Grade 3.”
In addition, 14 per cent of JKs and 17 per cent of Grade 3ers were at risk for being overweight with a BMI from the 85th to 95th percentile.
More than half of the children were measured annually four or five times over the next few years, allowing the researchers to determine how being overweight in JK affected their future weight.
“Children whose BMI was between the 85th and 95th percentile in JK had almost six times the risk of being overweight four years later compared with those below the 85th percentile,” says Evers.
The researchers didn't find a gender difference in the prevalence of overweight children, she adds.
“Obesity is an established risk factor for both non-insulin-dependent diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adults. The long-term consequences of being overweight in childhood are also alarming.”
Participating children were all part of the Better Beginnings, Better Futures project, a prevention initiative in low-income communities in Ontario.
The researchers also looked at the mothers' BMI, education level, birthplace, age and poverty status. They found that children whose mothers were overweight were more likely to be overweight in JK.
“Almost 50 per cent of the mothers were overweight themselves,” says Evers. “A positive change in the diets of parents could result in better eating habits among children.”
She admits that changing household eating habits presents a challenge for low-income families.
“Interventions promoting increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and reduced intakes of foods high in fat and low in fibre won't work unless economically disadvantaged households have access to appropriate foods.”
There are also more barriers for lower-income families to increase levels of physical activity, she says.
“Lack of transportation, the cost of equipment and fees for certain sports, a lack of child care for siblings, and a shortage of well-equipped playgrounds are some of the obstacles facing low-income families.”