Healthy and Wealthy? Overweight and Obesity in Dupage County, Illinois

BACKGROUND:  Childhood overweight/obesity and obesity is a major public health concern affecting 32% and 17%, respectively, of our nation’s youth.  Programs designed to lower obesity rates depend on surveillance systems that track changes in obesity prevalence.

METHODS:  The FORWARD (Fighting Obesity, Reaching healthy Weight Among Residents of DuPage) coalition began collecting body mass index (BMI) data from schools in DuPage County, Illinois in 2010 to establish a surveillance system to determine a baseline prevalence of overweight and obesity in kindergarten, sixth, and ninth grade public school students.  FORWARD received BMI data from 91.5% and 94.8% of public schools for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years, respectively.

RESULTS: Of the 27,914 public school children sampled during the 2011-2012 academic year, 31.0% suffered from overweight/obesity and 15.4% from obesity.  In 2012-2013, of the 29,482 public school children sampled, 29.9% experienced overweight/obesity and 14.4% had obesity.  Despite the relative affluence in DuPage County, the prevalence of overweight/obesity and obesity mirrors national trends, with two exceptions.  Across all grades and when compared to females, males had a higher prevalence of both overweight/obesity and obesity (31.3% vs. 28.5% and 15.9% vs. 12.9%; p values < 0.001), a trend not reflected by National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data.  Additionally, hierarchical logistic regression showed that 30% of the variance in overweight/obesity and obesity was predicted by Hispanic ethnicity, a population that shows marked socioeconomic (SES) disparities nationwide.

CONCLUSIONS:  The variance in overweight/obesity and obesity predicted by Hispanic ethnicity suggests that future efforts to reduce overweight/obesity and obesity in DuPage County should increase focus on Hispanic populations, and that DuPage County represents a good location to explore the relationship between overweight and obesity, race/ethnicity, and SES.  Differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations, as well as between male and female students, highlight the need for continued BMI surveillance, at a level of precision that will allow more targeted efforts of awareness and intervention.  A BMI registry at the state or county level permitting student identification in a confidential manner would enhance longitudinal follow-up capability, improve the quality of data, and allow for more advanced analyses toward better informed obesity prevention efforts.