Recent Articles

Childhood Obesity

The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades

Read Full Articles

Childhood Obesity

November 20, 2008 by Elizabeth Beachy  
Filed under Health

Leave a Comment

Over the past 30 years the share of children in the United States who are considered overweight or obese in the has doubled from 15 percent in the 1970s to nearly 30 percent today. And the share of children who are considered obese has tripled, according to a 2006 study by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, entitled “The Future of Children.”

The problem of childhood obesity disproportionately affects minority and low-income children, due to a wide variety of factors ranging from neighborhood safety issues to the accessibility of health foods. While the epidemic of childhood obesity has received much attention, there have been few conclusive studies to demonstrate which policies or programs will most effectively combat childhood obesity.

According to the report, it is widely attributed to various factors including “increases in television and computer game use that have led to a new generation of “couch potatoes”; the explosive proliferation of fast-food restaurants, many of which market their products to children through media campaigns that tout tie-ins to children’s movies and TV shows; increases in sugary and fat-laden foods displayed at children’s eye level in supermarkets and advertised on TV; schools that offer children junk food and soda while scaling back physical education classes and recess; working parents who are unable to find the time or energy to cook nutritious meals or supervise outdoor playtime; the exodus of grocery stores from urban centers, sharply reducing access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables; and suburban sprawl and urban crime, both of which keep children away from outdoor activities. The problem is not the lack of explanations for the increase in childhood obesity, but the abundance of them.”

The report emphasizes that childhood obesity is “best viewed as a societal problem reflecting the interactive influences of environment, biology, and behavior, rather than as an individual medical illness” and offers recommendations for parents, school administrators, and childcare specialists as to how to address the issue.

For more details,

download the full report.

The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades

November 20, 2008 by Elizabeth Beachy  
Filed under Education

Leave a Comment

The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health recently published a study funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that highlights the importance of addressing chronic absence in kindergarten and primary school, to improve educational outcomes in the later grades.

According to the report’s authors, “At the core of school improvement and education reform is an assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students have to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the discovery that thousands of our youngest students are academically at-risk because of extended absences when they first embark upon their school careers is as remarkable as it is consequential.”

They continue with a call to action for all teachers and parents: “Schools and communities have a choice: we can work together early on to ensure families get their children to class consistently or we can pay later for failing to intervene before problems are more difficult and costly to ameliorate.”

“…During the early elementary years, children are gaining basic social and academic skills critical to ongoing academic success. Unless students attain these essential skills by third grade, they require extra help to catch up and are at grave risk for eventually dropping out of school.”

Download full report