HoustonChronicle.com

• Feds plan largest study of kids' health ever
• Main job done, Mars rover Spirit rolls on
• ACLU sues over list of banned air travelers
• Plans studied for more U.S. troops in Iraq
  • Bush Iraq deadline impractical, Kerry says
• Man denies tracking co-worker's keystrokes
• Cleared of criminal charges, Muslim chaplain home
• L.A. Times wins five Pulitzers
  • Winners of the 2004 awards
• Court to clarify car searches, seizures
  • Other Supreme Court actions
• New governor fights past, proposes ethics reform
• Teacher surrenders in hit-and-run that killed boys
• Event adds $1.5 million to Bush's war chest
• Boston Archdiocese settles with four men who say they were abused
• National Briefs

Obesity continues to drive down kids' health, study says

Obesity is the worst health problem facing U.S. children, causing them to score lower in measurements of overall health than children in 1975, a Duke University study concluded.

The health finding was part of a bigger study, sponsored by the Foundation for Child Development, that analyzed children's well-being in a number of areas. The researchers found that children are only slightly better off, overall, than they were nearly 30 years ago.

The research index looked at 28 indicators in seven quality-of-life categories.

Results showed improvements have been made in child safety and teen birth rates, but more children live in poverty and attempt suicide.

The index showed an overall improvement in children's well-being of 5.07 percent from 1975 to 2002, the last full year for which data was available.

The Duke researchers used six indicators to measure children's health, ranging from mortality rates to whether children say they are in good health. The problem of childhood obesity was severe enough to drag the category below 1975 levels.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that U.S. hospital costs related to childhood obesity have more than tripled in the past 20 years, reaching $127 million.

The American Obesity Association reported that about 7 percent of children were obese in 1976, but that number had more than doubled to 15.3 percent by 2000.

Several studies conducted on students within the Houston Independent School District reveal an even more troubling obesity rate here -- from about 19 percent, in a 2001 study of five elementary schools and one middle school, to as high as 26 percent in a 2003 study of 1,165 students ranging from 12- to 19-years-old.

Obesity rates tend to track higher for Hispanic and African-American children in Houston and across the nation.

Obesity is the most dramatic problem reflected in the Duke study. Researchers found that it took years for children to regain ground lost in several categories during the mid-1980s.

"Kids are doing better, but they are not doing nearly as well as they should be given this country's advances in education, health, and social programs," said Kenneth Land, the Duke University sociologist who developed the index.

The years 1981 through 1994 were particularly rough on kids, Land said, because of an economic recession and changes to the family structure.