Child obesity rising faster in rural America

The Center for Health Promotion at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, where Holm is senior scientist, is following about 500 third- to fifth-graders over three years with hopes of finding a pattern.

Fewer farmers does not explain why Windber, a former coal-mining town named after a coal-mining company, would have the same problem.

One connection might be found in the satellite dishes, computers and game consoles that have popped up in almost every town, regardless of the region’s economic engine. The same technology is found in cities and suburbs, but health officials say it arrived later and spread much more rapidly in rural areas, changing behavior dramatically in a very short time.

The only other place where researchers are finding obesity rates similar to rural America is in the poorest, most troubled urban neighborhoods, suggesting that poverty may be the overriding cause.

In Tioga County in northeast Pennsylvania, where farming has declined and poverty has risen to about 20 percent, one in 10 kindergartners were found to be obese in 2001-2002. That number doubled for eighth-graders.

“We’ve seen it sneaking up on us, we’ve known it’s a problem, and now it’s reaching epidemic proportions,” said Anne Loudenslager, who heads the Tioga County Partnership for Community Health. “We are using a good portion of our limited resources to stop this.”

Wellsboro Area High School, the largest in the county with 580 students, will alter physical education next year to allow student choices: sports team-oriented, wellness classes, and traditional gym classes.

Dr. Ellsworth, in Windber, said he hopes to have several hundred children in a new health program this year. He calls himself an optimist.

During a recent health fair in Connellsville, about 40 miles to the west, Ellsworth found that 60 percent of adults tested had metabolic syndrome, a collection of unhealthy conditions that raise the risk for diabetes and heart disease.

“The numbers for obesity in children were nowhere near what they are today and you can just imagine what we’re going to be looking at 10 to 20 years from now if nothing is done,” he said. “That 60 percent ... that’s going to seem like a pretty low figure.”

Ray Crawford, who is 16, lifts weights year-round in preparation for football season. Round-faced and 5-foot-9, he looks every bit the lineman he is for the Windber Ramblers. Now he says he’ll also take up cardiovascular exercise, along with the weight-lifting.

“I’ve started trying to take it easy on the junk food,” he says.

Crawford’s father died of heart disease about eight years ago. He was 45.

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