POTTSTOWN PA – There’s good news across greater Pottstown PA, according to the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation, about student obesity: it’s going down.
Body Mass Index (BMI) statistics included in the foundation’s latest newsletter, its Fall 2011 edition, indicate that more Pottstown area students who once were considered obese – grossly overweight given their comparative height – have been losing pounds during the past three years.
Fourteen percent of 29,450 students who live in the foundation service area, which includes the Pottsgrove, Pottstown, and Spring-Ford Area school districts, were deemed to be obese following screenings conducted during 2010. That compares to 17 percent during 2007, and means 883 students both dropped weight and dropped out of the obese category during the period.
The foundation actively promoted the newsletter’s release Wednesday (Sept. 28, 2011) in announcements on Twitter and other social media platforms.
There was improvement too, but less so, in the category of students considered overweight, the statistics show. They accounted for 17 percent of all students measured last year, and 18 percent of those measured during 2007. The 1-percent decline represents 294 students who got healthier.
Not surprisingly, the percentage of students who were said to be within a healthy range of weight rose during the three-year period from 64 percent in 2007 to 68 percent in 2010. “Physical activity makes a difference in Pottstown,” the foundation triumphantly Tweeted.
Potentially worrisome in the BMI statistics is growth in the number of student considered at-risk for being underweight. That category rose from 2 percent during 2007 to 3 percent last year. The newsletter did not comment on a cause.
Pennsylvania law requires student height and weight measurements to be taken at least annually. The state’s goal, under the law, is “to determine the pattern of growth for each child, so that his weight and height can be interpreted in light of his own growth pattern rather than those of his classmates.” BMI screenings became mandatory for children in kindergarten through 12th grade during the 2007-’08 school year and beyond.
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