On Obesity in Urban Preschool Students

Introduction

In this paper a study was done on obesity in urban preschool students that attend the Head Start program. The theory that the paper best supports would be the structural functional theory, which focuses on consensus and interaction in social life and how it influences social structure. The hypothesis was that children who live and attend Head Start in areas with greater walkability, better safety, and a more favorable balance of unattractive and attractive aesthetic features will be more physically active and leaner than other children. The variables in this experiment were how active the children were (independent) and whether or not the children were obese (dependent) "Head Start is a preschool program for children of low- income families. Although the study was designed primarily to examine the determinants of asthma prevalence and severity, the data also provide an opportunity to investigate geographic patterns related to childhood physical activity and anthropometry in a vulnerable urban population." (Lovasi, 2011)

Study Design

In this study an experiment was conducted to measure if where the children lived influenced their weight. In the experiment New York City Head Start enrollees were randomly chosen to participate in this study between 2003 and 2005. Fifty Head Start centers were participated in the study. A case study was presented to parents for them to give permission to conduct the experiment using their children. The staff conducting the experiment places an Acti-watch (accelerometer) on each child's nondominant and asked the parents to leave the bracelet on for the whole week. The Acti-watch was used to detect the child's physical activity for the week. Activity counts indicating the intensity of physical activity were recorded for 1-minute epochs. "Accelerometer data were then summarized for the entire 6-day period, including an estimation of the mean activity counts per minute during waking hours." (Lovasi, 2011) during the experiment each child had to attend a home visit where the child was weighed on a portable scale and the height and weight were used to measure the BMI of each child. Children of the same sex and age were placed into present tiles based on their BMI. The experimenters also measured skinfolds and triceps 3 times on each child.

To define the neighborhood that each child came from the experimenters drew a straight line from their home to the Head Start location that they attended "381 children (89%) living less than 2 km from their Head Start center, we defined the neighborhood as the area within a 0.5-km buffer around the line. For the 47 children (11%) who lived more than 2 km from their Head Start center, we defined the neighborhood as the circular areas within a 0.5-km buffer around each of the two addresses. All bodies of water were