Trends and disparities in childhood obesity among 5th grade students in los angeles county, 2005-2011

Socio-economic status and other social determinants remain priority targets for obesity prevention interventions looking to reduce health disparities in the community. Purpose: to assess and compare trends in childhood obesity among 5th grade public school students in Los Angeles County from 2005-06 to 2010-11. Implications of results are discussed within the context of local planning of obesity prevention programs supported by such federal initiatives as the CPPW program and CTG. Fitnessgram® data was analyzed on 595,160 5th grade public school students. Obesity prevalence was compared between high and low poverty schools, stratified by sex and ethnicity. School poverty status was defined as % participation in the federally-subsidized school meal programs (e.g., > 75% participation = high need/poverty). Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to test for significance in trends across the sampled period. The overall obesity prevalence in 2010-11 was 22.3%. The prevalence was higher among students from high poverty schools (29.0%) versus low poverty schools (9.7%). From 2005-06 to 2010-11, the overall prevalence decreased from 27.2% to 27.0% (diff. – 0.8%; p<0.001). Among high poverty schools, the prevalence increased by 1.5% (p=0.009) whereas among low poverty schools, the prevalence decreased by 18.5% (p=0.001). Hispanics had the highest obesity prevalence among the high poverty schools. The prevalence was higher for whites from high poverty schools than for whites from low poverty schools (26.6% versus 8.4%). The association of school poverty status with obesity was stronger than the association of ethnicity with obesity, reflecting continual health disparities in the community.