Daily HealthBeat Tip

Big kids for the seats

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Car safety seats for kids are designed to take certain ages and weights of kids. But as America's kids become fatter, something has changed. Many kids are too fat for the seat that, according to their age, they should be in.

Lara Trifiletti came across the packed-too-tight problem at Johns Hopkins in a research project supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researcher, who's now at Ohio State, then figured out how many kids in America are affected. Her findings are in the journal Pediatrics.

"Two-hundred-and-eighty-three-thousand children between one and six years of age would have a difficult if not impossible time finding a safe child seat because of their age and weight." (nine seconds)

Trifiletti says a handful of seats can take the big kid, but they have big costs � well above average.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April 11, 2006

The White House | USA.gov | Helping America's Youth