Study: Schools could trim girls' obesity with more PE
By Rick Callahan
Associated Press
Published September 7, 2004

Just an extra hour of exercise a week could cut obesity significantly among overweight girls, according to a study that researchers say could lead to major changes in the way schools fight the problem.

The study--the largest look yet at obesity among younger children--did not show the same results for boys, possibly because they generally get more exercise than girls.
Still, Dr. Rebecca Unger, a pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said the findings show the important role that schools can play to prevent obesity and its health ramifications. She said the study highlights the importance of funding daily physical education in the nation's schools, where about 15 percent of children and adolescents are overweight, according to government figures.

"This is incredibly serious if you consider the medical and emotional consequences of obesity," said Unger, who was not involved in the research. "The further along these problems progress, the more at risk these children are."

In the study of more than 11,000 children, researchers compared changes in the body-mass index--a measure of weight relative to height--of obese and overweight girls in kindergarten and 1st grade. They found that the prevalence of obesity and overweight among the girls fell 10 percent in schools that gave 1st graders one hour more of exercise time per week than kindergartners.

Based on that, the researchers believe that giving kindergartners at least five hours of physical education per week--the amount recommended by the federal government--could reduce the prevalence of obesity and overweight among girls by 43 percent.

"This has the ability to affect tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of children," said Nancy Chockley, president of the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

The Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group recently released a research brief on the study and two others of childhood obesity.

The analyses were done by Rand Corp., a think tank that used data collected by the U.S. Department of Education as part of a long-term study of 11,192 children from about 1,000 schools who entered kindergarten in 1998.

The results released so far are only for those youths' kindergarten and 1st-grade years. Data on their 3rd-grade and 5th-grade years will be released later.
Yale University obesity researcher Kelly Brownell said the findings are significant because they demonstrate the importance of making sure children get adequate physical activity, in or out of school.

But he said exercise must be tied with better eating habits--including rethinking school lunch programs and the presence of school vending machines laden with high-calorie snacks--to fully address the nation's epidemic of childhood obesity.