From Your Health Journal…..”A great local story from the Union Daily Times out of South Carolina called Half Of Fifth Grade Students Overweight, Obese. I wanted to share this article for a couple reasons. First, I feel this local school district should be applauded for trying to bring public awareness to a national health crisis. As long as collected information about the children was done in a tasteful manner, in an effort to help children without embarrassment, it is a great concept. Second, I wanted many of my readers to think how this may be implemented in their local area. With childhood obesity on the rise, something needs to be done to help our nations children, at home, and at school. Some of their results of this study found 37.6 percent of first grade students are obese or overweight, 47.4 percent of third grade students are obese or overweight, and 50 percent of fifth grade students are obese or overweight. Please visit the Union Daily Times web site (link provided below) to read the complete article.”

From the article…..

A year-long effort by the Union County School District to collect Body Mass Index data on students in the first, third and fifth grades has determined that, depending on the grade, one-third to as many as one-half of those students are overweight or obese.

In a statement released Friday afternoon, the district announced that over the course of the 2012-2013 school, the schools had collected BMI data for every first, third, and fifth grade student. The statement described BMI as “a measure used to determined childhood overweight and obesity and is calculated using a child’s weight and height. To promote consistency from school to school, staff were provided with similar scales and trained to use specific protocols to measure height and

The data was collected in order to determine the scope of the problem of obesity in the school district which the report states had been lacking until now.

“Public health officials and children’s health advocates are aware that the rising rate of obesity is a major threat for our children. However, a lack of local-level data has made it difficult to determine the exact scope of the problem in Union County.”

To read the complete article…..Click here