Little Rock. Ark. ? It’s been two years since Arkansas schools started sending letters home to parents with their kids’ report cards – letters telling them if their children were fat.

Plenty of parents weren’t happy. But a lot of them did something about it.

Suddenly there were more visits to the pediatrician for talks about weight problems. Fitness class attendance is up. Diet pill use by high-schoolers is down.

And more states are following Arkansas’ lead, including California, Florida and Pennsylvania, which have adopted similar programs.

Dr. Karen Young, medical director for the pediatric fitness clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, told of a mother who was upset when she got word from school that her child was overweight. The mother wanted a second opinion from Young, but in the meantime, she cut sweets from the family diet and slimmed the child down before the appointment.

“Even though she was upset with the letter and felt it was wrong, she still changed the family’s lifestyle,” Young said. “A lot of positive things have come out of those letters.”

Isabella Herrington, 9, of Jessieville, Ark., left, is examined by Dr. Karen Young at an Arkansas Children's Hospital clinic Tuesday, May 30, 2006, in Little Rock, Ark. Two years after Arkansas instituted first-in-the-nation obesity testing for public school students, data show that the percentage of overweight children remains the same, but at least it's not going up.

The letters record each child’s body-mass index, the same weight-height formula used to calculate adult obesity.

Across the state, 57 percent of doctors said they had at least one parent bring in their child’s letter from the school for discussion during the last school year.

Young said she’s had more visits from parents seeking help for the entire family.

“I don’t care what size their siblings are or their parents, everyone in the family should eat healthy and exercise,” she said. “What’s good for them is good for everybody.”

It’s still a little early to see big results from the state’s weigh-in program. After the first year, the percentage of overweight schoolchildren remained where it was at the start – 38 percent.

“We think probably, since there’s been no change, that’s probably good news,” said Jim Raczynski, dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. “We may have stopped the increase.”