Children’s Overall Health and Physical Well-Being at the Beginning of School in Arizona

• In Event: Evaluating a Statewide Community-Based Initiative to Enhance School Readiness: A Kindergarten Profile

Abstract

Objective or purposes
The final paper in the symposium will present findings from the Battelle Developmental Inventory Screening Test (BDI) and measurements of height and weight related to the calculation of Body Mass Index (BMI). In addition, the paper will report information gathered from guardians who were asked to report on health and dental insurance coverage for their child as well as their perception of the overall health of their child.

Perspectives or theoretical framework (Please see symposium overview)

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Analyses are based upon the administration of the BDI Screening Test to 1,140 children; height and weight measurements are reported for 1,079 children; and 1,030 parents/guardians responded to the question: Would you say the child’s overall health is: Excellent, Very good, Good, Fair or Poor?

Results/Conclusions

Motor development. Results indicated that the majority of children exhibited age appropriate motor development. However, if school health officials wanted to use the most conservative cutoff of 1.0 standard deviations below the mean, then approximately 18% of children in the sample would be identified for further testing. If a less stringent cutoff is chosen, such as 1.5 or 2.0 SD below the mean, fewer children would be identified for future testing.
Body Mass Index (BMI). Outcomes of the height and weight measurements of 1,079 children indicated that 12.9% of all the children were considered to be overweight with another 15% being at risk for being overweight. Very few children (2%) were considered underweight.
Dental and health insurance. The percentages of children in the present study whose parents or guardians report that they are without health insurance (10.2%) and dental insurance (14.4%) were slightly lower than other state or national estimates.
Overall health. In contrast to the DECA results where parents had greater concerns for children’s socio-emotional development, parents/guardians rated their children’s health much higher (over 17% higher) than did teachers.
Conclusions. In the present sample, obesity prevalence according to ethnic/racial designation was roughly aligned with the national trend (although our percentages were somewhat higher) with Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders having the highest percentage of at-risk or obese (57.1 %) followed by American Indian or Alaska Natives (42.9%); Hispanic descent, 16.6%; African American 12.7%; White 10.8%; Multiracial, 7.8%; and Asian 6.3%. Finally, a potential reason that fewer children were considered to have excellent health by teachers may be due to the fact that teachers are more observant about school absences, and they may also identify overweight children as being less healthy since studies have consistently shown that parents underestimate the relative weight of their children.

Authors

• Christina Cutshaw, The University of Arizona

• Douglas Taren, The University of Arizona