Transcript: Segment 11:
Statistics
Hines:
Some other points that were covered is that North Carolina children are less flexible than children nationally. North Carolina children have a higher percent of body fat than children nationally. North Carolina children have poorer cardiovascular fitness than children nationally. Some other facts, childhood obesity remains an epidemic in North Carolina affecting more than 1 in 4 youth who are 12 to 18 years of age, affecting more than 1 in 5 children who are 5 to 11 years of age, and 1 in 8 pre-school children who are 2 to 4 years of age.
Hines:
What else do the experts say? Overweight and obesity have reached epidemic proportions and have become one of the most pressing health issues for our nation. We even have children with diabetes. Do any of you know of any child that has diabetes? And would you like to share, not the person’s name but anything about that child?
F:
This child is in my church and when we have activities or even just choir rehearsal or anything we have to be very careful to watch this child. We have had two episodes of the sugar dropping and we have to keep either peanut butter or juice in our kitchen for this particular person. So it can be very dangerous.
Hines:
Okay. Increasingly the problem is affecting children and youth as well as adults. The percentage of overweight children in the United States again doubled during the past two decades and the percentage of overweight adolescents tripled. What else do the experts say? North Carolina children are also less flexible than children nationally. Less flexible! So stand up Ms. Cleo. Now we know she is not a child but we are going to see, how high can you kick your leg up?
F:
How high can I kick my leg up?
Hines:
Without hurting yourself. Wow! That’s pretty good, that’s pretty good, that’s very good. Now her daughter who is sitting next, let’s see how high she can kick her leg up. Okay, so Ms. Cleo was able to keep up with her daughter, she is staying fit. But that is real important for us to know about our children. We really need to, when we take them outside, give them opportunities to really run around and move and even when they are indoors, when you can’t play, when it is raining, do activities indoors. Today we are going to do some of those activities.
North Carolina children have a higher percentage of body fat than children nationally. Body fat. North Carolina children have poorer cardiovascular fitness than children nationally. So we talked about our heart at the beginning and the fact that we, this is the only heart we will have. And it is the same way for children.
Finally, what else do the experts say? That childhood obesity or childhood overweight remains an epidemic in North Carolina affecting more than 1 in 4 or 27.2% youth ages 12 to 18 years of age, more than 1 in 5 children 5 to 11 years of age and then 1 in 8 pre-school children 2 to 4 years of age. So it is an epidemic.
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