HRSA - Report Says 15 Percent of Children Are Overweight

	U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration HRSA NEWS ROOM http://newsroom.hrsa.gov

September 11, 2006

Contact: HRSA Press Office
301-443-3376

HRSA Report Says 15 Percent of Children Are Overweight

A new HRSA report finds that 14.8 percent of America’s 10- to 17-year-olds are overweight and that 71.3 percent of that age group exercise at least three days a week.

The percent of overweight children varied greatly among states, ranging from 8.5 percent in Utah to 20.9 percent in West Virginia and 22.8 percent in the District of Columbia. Kentucky and Tennessee also reported 20 percent or more of their children as overweight.

Findings in the report, Overweight and Physical Activity Among Children: A Portrait of States and the Nation 2005, are based on data collected during 2003-04 by the National Survey of Children's Health, a telephone survey of parents or guardians in over 100,000 households with a child under 18 years of age.

Other findings in Overweight and Physical Activity Among Children, HRSA’s third data report from the National Survey, include:

Males are more likely than females to be overweight (18.1 percent to 11.5 percent).
Overweight declines with age: 21.9 percent of 10- to 11-year-olds are overweight, compared to 10.7 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds.
At 23.5 percent, black children have the highest rate of overweight, followed by Hispanic children at 18.9 percent and white children at 12 percent.
As family income rises, overweight falls: 22.4 percent of children with family incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) are overweight, compared to 9.1 percent of children with family incomes of 400 percent of FPL and above.
The proportion of children who exercise – defined as physical activity three times a week that lasts at least 20 minutes and causes sweating and hard breathing – rises with family income: 65.6 percent of children with family incomes below 100 percent of FPL are active three or more days per week, compared to 75.0 percent of children with family incomes 400 percent of FPL and above.

The other two HRSA studies based on National Survey data are The Oral Health of Children: A Portrait of States and the Nation 2005 and The Health and Well-Being of Children: A Portrait of States and the Nation 2005.