Oklahoma ranks as the sixth-most obese state for obesity prevalence with one-in-three (30.4%) adults being obese (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CDC, 2012). The Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 16.4% of adolescents between 9th and 12th grade are overweight (85th percentile or higher), with 14.1% of adolescents being obese (95th percentile or higher) in Oklahoma (CDC, 2012). Though one-third (31.8%) of U.S. youth, aged 2 to 19 years old, were overweight or obese and about one-sixth (16.9%) of U.S. youth were obese in 2009-2010 (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2012), the prevalence of obesity in Oklahoma remains unknown for youth. This study is the first attempt to address this lack of information by providing the prevalence and trend of childhood obesity focusing on 3rd through 5th grade in Oklahoma.
Method:
Elementary school students ranging from 3rd through 5th grade (starting with n=3275 in spring 2010 and ending with n=2959 in spring 2012) participated in the study from spring 2010 to spring 2012. Physical Education (P.E.) teachers and volunteer parents collected students’ sexes, birth dates, heights and weights to calculate BMIs from Comanche county public schools in Oklahoma. The heights and weights were measured by each school-owned stadiometer or yardstick and scales once each semester. The Health, P.E. and Wellness Coordinator at the local school district collected the grade, birth date, weight and height data from each school’s physical educators. Obesity was calculated using the CDC’s Children’s BMI tool for schools (CDC, 2011). Descriptive statistics were analyzed in IBM SPSS Statistics version 19 (IBM Corp., 2010).
Analysis/Results:
A preliminary analysis shows that 44% of students are overweight or obese, with 25% of all students were obese in spring of 2010. In spring of 2012, 39% of students were overweight or obese, with 22% of all students being obese in 2012 spring.
Conclusions:
Although the obesity prevalence in this study has decreased between 2010 and 2012, the prevalence of overweight and obese students is still higher compared to the national study (Ogden, Carroll, Kit, & Flegal, 2012). Further, there is a potential reliability issue due to measurements being taken using a variety of measurement tools with varying degrees of accuracy. Future work includes a controlled and reliable measurement study to monitor children’s obesity. We also recommend raising awareness of the high obesity prevalence graded from 3th to 5th among teachers, staffs, parents and stakeholders to sustainably reduce childhood obesity.