Poverty & Overweight Children

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 18 percent of children between 12 and 19 years of age are overweight, 15 percent of children between ages 6 and 11 are overweight and 11 percent of 2- to 5-year-olds are overweight. It is unclear the extent to which poverty plays a role in this epidemic.

BMI

• Work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research on Poverty shows that children living in poverty have a Body Mass Index (BMI) 15 percent higher than children who are not impoverished. This relationship is influenced by consequences of living in poverty, such as poor access to healthy food.

Ethnicity

• A study by David S. Freedman, PhD, and colleagues in the journal "Medscape General Medicine" found that family income increased the odds of being overweight in African-American children more than in their White and Mexican-American counterparts.

Prevalence

• The CDC reported that while still high, overall overweight and obesity rates seem to have stabilized. The CDC gives some of the credit to federal, state and local prevention initiatives such as the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) public health program.

Prevention/Solution

• The CDC suggests that given the uncertain relationship between poverty and overweight children, focus ought to be placed on education. A website on childhood obesity attempts to educate readers on the importance of eating foods with high nutritional value and understanding the impact of calories in the body.

Contradiction

• A review of the research on poverty and overweight children indicates that results are mixed. While some studies affirm a connection between the two variables, others show no relationship.