Overweight and obesity among Hawai'i children aged 4 to 5 years enrolled in public schools in 2007-2008 and comparison with a similar 2002-2003 cohort.

This assessment provides the most recent estimates of overweight and obesity among children 4 to 5 years old who were enrolled in public schools in the 2007-2008 school year, using data obtained from Student Health Records for 12,823 children, which represents 91% of the 14,070 children who were enrolled in kindergarten in 2007-2008. This assessment is a census of 4 to 5 year olds that entered public schools in Hawai'i in 2007-2008 and represents approximately 38% of the total Hawai'i population for those aged 4 to 5 years, since kindergarten is not a requirement. A limited data set with data on age, sex, height, and weight was used to calculate BMI (body mass index) percentiles. We compare this data with age and sex-specific BMI obtained from Student Health Records from 10,199 children aged 4 to 5 years entering public schools during 2002-2003. The results illustrate that like the 2002-2003 data (28.5%), over one in four (28.6%) of the children aged 4 to 5 years entering Hawai'i public schools in 2007-2008 were either overweight or obese. Total proportions overweight and obese were persistently higher (32.5% or more in both 2002-2003 and 2007-2008) in some specific school complexes on O'ahu as well as in some rural and Neighbor Island school complexes. Physicians, public health and school health professionals, advocates, schools, and communities should be vigilant about this persistent problem and seek to implement practices to combat overweight and obesity. In addition, the use of Student Health Records for on-going pediatric obesity surveillance should be explored more fully.