Obesity Discussion Forums

[Obesity Discussion]

Feb 2, 10:06 AM (ET)

By TIM FOUGHT

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Because Oregon kids are growing out faster than they are growing up, public schools must get students exercising and remove the temptation of junk food, child advocates say.

Nearly one in four Oregon children meet the definition of overweight or obese, in adult terms, according to the annual Kids Count report.

It said this is part of a national trend: More than twice as many children and three times as many adolescents are overweight today than was the case 30 years ago.

The leader of the group that issues the report, Children First for Oregon, said overweight children are part of an epidemic.


The result, said Executive Director Robin Christian, is that "this generation will be the first to be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."

Kids Count is a national effort sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. In Oregon, it compiles a variety of data about child welfare statewide and in the 36 counties.

The report lays the blame for overweight children on a variety of causes: Two-earner families pressed for time and relying on fast and convenience food, and on restaurant meals. More "screen time" for television and games. Larger portion sizes, in restaurants and homes. Poverty, and prices rising faster for fresh foods than packaged goods. Soda and candy machines in schools. Fewer physical education classes. Car-friendly suburbs where people walk little.

The Kids Count report bases its conclusions on a 2005 survey of Oregon schools conducted by the state Department of Human Services.

According to that survey, 24 percent of eighth- and 11th-graders in Oregon are overweight or obese by the standards set for adults by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The federal health agency uses a calculation called "body mass index." That calculation is based on weight and height and is adjusted for differences between the sexes.

Adults are overweight, the federal health agency says, if they fall within the top 15 percent of the body-mass indexes, and they are obese if they are within the top 5 percent of the indexes.

Kids Count took particular aim at the practice of schools selling contracts to candy and soda vendors, a source of revenue for schools that have been laying off teachers and enlarging class sizes as state legislators struggle with budgets.

"We don't think that selling the health of children is an appropriate option," said Cathy Kaufmann, a policy and research assistant for the group.

The group said state government also must be involved in finding solutions.

Among the group's recommendations: minimum standards for the nutrition in food and drink in public schools; 30 minutes of physical education a day in all grades; regular health education in all grades; no sales of candy or soda during school hours; no marketing of junk food in schools.

Senate President Peter Courtney, an advocate of more physical education and good nutrition, said the Legislature failed to take action in 2005 on a bill requiring PE for students and he predicted it will fail again when the bill comes up in the next session.

"We're not ready," the Democrat from Salem lamented. "We're not ready to make this commitment to the children and the schools. It's money."

Courtney's bill called for 150 minutes of PE a week for grades one through five, and 225 minutes a week for grades six through 12. It passed in the Senate and died in the House, "one of my saddest defeats," Courtney said.

State School Superintendent Susan Castillo said in a prepared statement that she backed the Kids Count recommendations for "high quality health and PE programs," for after-school exercise and coordinated health services.

State nutrition standards and a ban on junk food and its marketing, she said, "are issues we are working on with local school districts and their school boards."

In 2005, she told a legislative committee she worried about schools cutting other programs to provide the PE that Courtney's bill would require.