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Overweight elementary school students are more physically active than normal weight students (808.1)
Author(s) -
Chan Charlene,
Goto Keiko,
Wolff Cindy,
BiancoSimeral Stephanie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.808.1
Subject(s) - overweight , obesity , body mass index , normal weight , demography , gerontology , medicine , cross sectional study , association (psychology) , psychology , environmental health , endocrinology , pathology , sociology , psychotherapist
The objective of this cross‐sectional study was to examine the association between body mass index (BMI) and fruit and vegetable (FV) intake and BMI and physical activity (PA) by race in three low‐income northern California schools consisting of primarily White and Hmong elementary school students. A total of 244 4th and 5th grade students were classified into three racial groups: White, Hmong and Other. Students were measured for height and weight and completed an in‐class survey assessing FV intake and PA behavior. The Kruskal‐Wallis test was used for data analysis. The overweight and obesity prevalence was 31%. While there was no significant association between BMI and PA among Hmong and Other students, overweight White students had a significantly higher PA level than normal weight White students. Among students from other races, overweight students reported consuming more vegetables than normal weight students, whereas no association between BMI and FV intake was observed among White and Hmong students. Additional research is needed to further understand possible explanations of varied associations between BMI and PA and BMI and vegetable intake among different racial groups. Educators and health care providers may need to consider different strategies when delivering health education to different racial groups.