Are Kansas’ children getting super-sized?

Health experts say a combination of poor eating habits, more TV viewing and less physical activity are creating – nationwide – more obese children, who could face a number of ailments later in life.

“I think that is a concern for parents,” said Jack Mercer, a southwest Lawrence resident who has noticed the problem.

Mercer, who has a daughter at Lawrence High School and a son at South Junior High School, said he thought students needed to have more physical education classes at school.

“I think they spend more time in front of the television and playing video games than I did as a child,” Mercer said. “And as they get older, they move to computers, to e-mail and instant messaging, so that’s also a problem.”

Because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s emphasis on academics, schools have decreased the length of physical activity time for students, said Rep. Pat Colloton, R-Leawood.

“Are we balancing the academic needs with the health needs?” Colloton asked.

She is pushing a bill that would have school districts across the state to gather specific information about what’s being offered in schools’

physical education classes and also measure the fitness levels and the body fat levels of students.

The bill – HB2090 – would require school districts to give fitness tests that would include body mass index, or BMI, calculations on students in grades four, seven, nine and 12.

That information would be sent to the Kansas Department of Education and be relayed to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

“It’s a survey of what is going on in physical education and a survey of both the fitness and the obesity of our children,” she said.

Langston Hughes School third-graders Tori Karlin, left, and Nicole Owens swing through the air during physical education class at the school. Legislation was introduced Wednesday that would require schools to administer fitness tests, including a body mass index calculation, to all public school students in grades four, seven, nine and 12.

Colloton said her bill will have a hearing late next week before the House Education Committee.

Local district weighs in

Lawrence’s deputy superintendent, Bruce Passman, doesn’t support such a move.

Passman said forcing districts to test students would eat into a school day already tight with No Child Left Behind requirements.

“It sounds like it’s pretty heavy-handed in terms of establishing some bureaucratic procedure that we’ve got enough of already,” he said.

Passman has been leading the district’s own efforts at implementing a new health and wellness policy that the local board approved last June.

He said Kansas does have access to statewide data. A study was conducted last year by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provided a health portrait of the nation and data by individual state.

Also, Passman said there are “some real problems” with reliability and validity of BMI rating. He said it’s just a calculation using height and weight and doesn’t take into consideration that some children have different body types.

His sentiments were echoed by Randy Weseman, Lawrence’s superintendent.

“I’m becoming a little weary of the next new thing coming down the road from the state and the feds,” Weseman said. “We’ve developed a wellness policy. It’s well known around the community. And even that’s received its share of criticism because at some particular point you can’t legislate wellness. It’s certainly not entirely up to the schools to fix the problem of obesity. We don’t feed them the majority of their meals.”

Sebelius addresses issue

The topic of childhood obesity also came up Thursday during Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ speech to the Topeka Chamber of Commerce.

“We have to deal more aggressively with childhood obesity, an issue that not only affects our children, but once those children get to be 40, we pay those extraordinary costs for a very long time,” Sebelius said.

“Health costs associated with weight issues and heart issues are astronomical,” she said.

According to a recent study by the American Journal of Public Health, some 17 percent of U.S. youngsters are obese and millions more are overweight.

Obesity can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, sleep problems and other disorders.

Dr. Terry Riordan, a Lawrence pediatrician, said Passman is correct in saying that BMI “tells you nothing about fitness.”

However, Riordan said it is a “very good” indicator of obesity.

“It’s (obesity) probably the No. 1 thing that I discuss with parents because it’s probably the No. 1 thing that’s preventable that we can look at to help them,” he said.

“It’s a much more significant problem now than it was 20 years ago when I came to Lawrence,” he said.