PagesKids may see some changes in the foods served by schools and the snacks available in campus vending machines if County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price has anything to say about it. From a study she presented at a countywide School Food Summit at Rancho Bernardo Inn, an average of 29% of boys and 18% of girls currently attending county schools are overweight.
The causes of this trend towards obesity in school children are still in debate. At the first “Food Summit” more than 200 nutritionists and public-health specialists got together in Ranch Bernardo to discuss the health problem and address possible solutions for what could be a major health issue if children continue to eat as they do.
So what is “overweight”, how do we measure that? Since the problem of obesity in the United States has been such an issue, federal guidelines have been developed to help physicians diagnose the state and bring some conformity to the term. There are three main measurements which are used with regularity.
The first is called the BMI (body mass index). It’s a bit complicated but here is how you determine it. Multiply your weight in pounds by 703 and then divide it twice by your height in inches. For example, if you weight 135 pounds and are 5 feet 6 inches tall, multiply 135 x 703=94905, then divide 94905 by 66 inches=1437.95 and divide 1437.95 by 66 inches again to equal 21.78. Your BMI is 21.78. Overweight is defined by a BMI of 25 to 29.9, and obesity as a BMI of 30 or higher. These ranges are also in accord with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans established in 1995.
The second measure is waist circumference. Why the waist? Because abdominal fat is usually a risk factor for disease. The way you figure the distribution of body fat around the waist is to take your waist measurement in inches and divide it by your hip size in inches. This gives you a ratio that needs to be below 0.8 for women and 1.0 for men. Higher ratios are associated with heart disease risk. Here’s an example, a woman with a 35 inch waist and 42 inch hips would have a ratio of 0.83 and be at risk.
The third measure is called anthropometry, a skin fold thickness taken from different points on the body–usually the triceps, shoulder blades and hips. Skin fold thickness can help you know if weight is due to muscle or fat.
The full National Institutes of Health release on overweight measurements can be found online at http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jun98/nhlbi-17.htm
Many ideas came out of the conference on how to address the issue which some suggest is at an epidemic level in San Diego schools. Most agreed that the real solution is basic and simple, ‘get the kids to eat right’. Just cutting out the junk foods would solve much of the problem, something that doctors have been telling us for years.
Some of the detailed ideas to reach this goal of better health and eating habits is to phase out junk foods offered in the campus vending machine with more nutritional selections, or to at least get better selections in there to compete for the student dollars. Very few of the campus vending machines even offer a healthy snack. Another suggestion was to use the marketing techniques that sell chips and sodas for fruits, nuts and vegetables. Education to introduce the idea that eating for entertainment value wasn’t the best idea out there was also suggested.
Some other practical suggestions included selling items other than chocolate bars for school fund-raising programs. Celebrating milestones in the classroom with cake and ice cream may not be the best option either.
Since 1980 incidences of overweight and obesity have doubled in United States schools. The problem is not going away. Slater-Price said at the summit that San Diego is certainly not immune to the situation.
What ever the solutions in the schools might be, San Marco’s McCoy said that even if the kids did eat healthy meals for breakfast and lunch in the schools, she pointed out that this would only be one third of their yearly meals. Real changes had to happen at home and in the fundamental lifestyles the children chose to live.
Posted by Glenn Hefley in Example-News Story
