194: Can We Fix Childhood Obesity?

In the 1970's, roughly 5% of children were obese. Today, that number is over 22% and there are no signs of it slowing down. Along with having an unhealthy weight, kids younger and younger are starting to experience problems like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis and depression.

In addition to those chronic ailments, obesity in childhood tends to carry over into adolescence and then into adulthood. Here is what the numbers say: 55% of obese children go on to be obese in adolescence and around 80% of obese adolescents will be obese in early adulthood. 70% of these individuals will be obese over the age 30. A sedentary lifestyle plays a huge role in body composition and if we want to reverse some of these trends, increasing physical activity for children would be a great place to start.

In Slovenia, they conducted a study where they got 48% of their primary schools and over 34,000 students to participate. The purpose of this research was to see the effect of adding an additional 2-3 days of physical activity on the body composition of the students involved in the study. As one might assume, more physical activity led to huge improvements in reducing BMI scores. The greatest improvements were in those children with the highest BMI scores and the results began to really become apparent at the three year mark.

What this tells me is that consistent physical activity, done over years, can help fight the childhood obesity rise we have been seeing in recent decades. In pure volume alone, the schools have the power to impact the most children and as the study indicates, can make a huge difference in the lives of those kids they work with. If we want to make change, a good place to start is getting physical activity back into the schools!