Our findings support the growing concern about problems of overweight and obesity among school-age children and the need to use BMI as a percentile according to sex and age to properly evaluate such students. Because our study sample was mostly black students, we will focus on concerns about this portion of the U.S. population. Of [...]

Table 2 outlines the demographics of each of the five classes assessed. Data were obtained from the Nutstat module of Epi Info.6 The ages in months for each grade reflect that this study was completed in the spring of the academic school year. Because the 54 black students made up more than 80% of the [...]

After receiving parental permission, 66 children from grades one through five in the City of Richmond’s first model elementary school were assessed for height and weight (counterweight scale) by the school nurse on March 14, 2003. Students wore their school dress, took off their shoes, and emptied their pockets before being weighed. Additional demographic information [...]

INTRODUCTION
Obesity is an ever-increasing problem in the United States. Recent reports describe a 30.5% age-adjusted prevalence rate of obesity for adults. Comparable figures for children and adolescents are 10.4% for ages 2-5 years, 15.3% for ages 6-11 years, and 15.5% for ages 12-19 years.