One in five 4 Year Olds OBESE!

Sesame Street Must Be Up In Arms! Years of public education and goverment sponsored nutrition programs just cant keep up with the alarming rise in obesity. We focus efforts one place, make an improvement, and in three other places we have new problems. How then can we possibly target interventions, or distribute public program dollars? Well given this new study, I argue that we need life long nutrition education, not just during certain periods of our lives.

We have all heard that obesity is up 30% in the last 2 decades, and that older children and teens are the fastest growing subpopulation, no pun intended....

Now we have to worry about our toddlers more so than ever before. This study backs up the need for programs like Women Infants & Children (WIC) and Food Stamps, both which supplement food costs and offer education, particularly WIC.

Out of Chicago: this new study says almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age.

Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests.

Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.


"The cumulative evidence is alarming because within just a few decades, America will become a 'minority majority' nation," he said. Without interventions, the next generation "will be at very high risk" for heart disease, high blood pressure, cancers, joint diseases and other problems connected with obesity, said Flores, who was not involved in the new research.

This is a real problem, and NEEDS to be funded to be corrected!

More on this story can be found at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090406/ap_on_re_us/med_obese_preschoolers;_ylt=AgldHAhAi5hkXf6QLCmSfMCISbYF