Great, Even Our Kids Are Fat
By Joanna Miller in News on Mar 10, 2006 10:00PM
Ah, to be in kindergarten again. Half days filled with story time, naps and milk and cookies. Unfortunately, Chicago kids may have to skip the milk and cookies from now on, or at least stick to Snackwells and skim. The Journal of School Health, published by the American School Health Association, reports that nearly one-quarter of Chicago children are already overweight by the time they enter school. According to the study, 24 percent of the children surveyed had body-mass indexes higher than 95 percent, which is twice the national average of overweight children and three times the average in the Midwest.
Great. Not only are we the fattest city, but we’ve also got the fattest kids before they even start school? And we can’t even blame it on crappy school lunches? That’s depressing, no? 
Chicagoist took a quick look at how the group conducted the study and we have a few questions. First, the study only looked at Chicago children and compared the data to statistics from other national studies that date from 1998 to 2002. So is it fair to compare statistics from one localized study to that of national and regional studies from as far back as eight years ago? If there is an obesity epidemic sweeping the country, doesn’t it stand to reason that people would have grown fatter across the country in recent years? And how do these numbers compare to statistics from Chicago and other urban areas in the past?
The report says, "these results indicate an urgent problem facing Chicago children, families, health providers, and schools.” We’re all for healthy children, and we understand the ASHA is probably just trying to scare the local community into action, which perhaps is what it needs. But, you’ll forgive us if we’re afraid the people who brought us mandatory Driver's Ed for blind kids might need some encouragement to remain calm and rational. Let’s keep things positive and stress healthy eating and exercise for all. We don’t need to put five-year-olds on diets, do we?