doi:10.5402/2011/270464 Research Article Obesity and Overweight Prevalence among a Mississippi Low-Income Preschool Population: A Five-Year Comparison

Copyright © 2011 Bonnie L. Harbaugh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. This study determined 2010 rates of overweight/obesity in a representative sample of low-income preschoolers in Mississippi, USA and compared rates between 2005 (N = 1250) and 2010 (N = 1765). Significance. Obesity is a significant global health issue because of its well-established negative health consequences. Child obesity is a concern due to risk of early-onset obesity-related illnesses and the longevity of lifetime exposure to those illnesses. Methods. Identical measures were used in 2005 and 2010 with complex-stratified sampling designs. Results. Chi-square tests revealed that overall obesity/overweight rates between 2005 (20.6%/17.9%) and 2010 (20.8%/17.0%) had not changed significantly for the samples as a whole, nor by gender or race. Age group comparisons indicated a significant decline in obesity rates of 3 year olds (20.3 % in 2005, reduced to 13.1 % i