OBESITY

RISK OF OBESITY AMONG 5TH GRADERS DROPPED

3.6% LAST YEAR, YET LIFELONG CHRONIC HEALTH RISK STRESSES THE URGENCY FOR MORE PROGRESS.

This indicator reports data from the California Physical Fitness Test on the percent of 5th grade students who are classified as having health risk due to their body composition. Detail about this indicator is provided in the box below.

Excess weight acquired during childhood and adolescence may persist into adulthood and increase the risk for chronic diseases, such as sleep apnea, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension. Obese adolescents have a 70% chance of becoming obese adults. 1 Excess weight can be prevented and treated through proper nutrition and physical activity (reported on page 30 and 31 of this report), especially during the critical periods of infancy, two to four years of age and adolescence.

Findings

• During the 2014/15 school year, 17.7% (6,428) of 5th graders tested were classified “at health risk due to body composition,” down 3.6% from 2013/14 (18.3% or 6,668) and lower than California at 20.9% of 5th graders.

• A mong race and ethnic groups, Pacific Islander (39.4%) and Hispanic (26.2%) 5th graders had the highest percents of students classified at health risk due to their body composition, followed by Filipino (17.1%), American Indian (16.0%), Black (15.3%), Multiracial (11.4%), White (9.4%) and Asian (8.5%) 5th graders.

California Physical Fitness Test uses the Cooper Institute’s FITNESSGRAM approach, which classifies 5th grade students at “Health Risk” due to body composition when they had a body fat percentage or a body mass index (BMI) that could result in health issues. “Health Risk” classifications for body composition are defined using criterion-referenced, age-specific standards. The definitions of FITNESSGRAM categories were recently modified to more closely approximate widely accepted CDC-defined BMI weight classification schemes and improve classification agreement between body fat and BMI based approaches. Because of these adjustments, California Physical Fitness Test data collected prior to the 2013/14 school year are not comparable to those collected under the current standards.

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