When students walk into her office, school nurse Leigh Ann Bagley is dealing with more than scraped knees and upset stomachs.
She sees overweight students as young as first grade suffering from type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, elevated blood pressure and other ailments that for decades were considered adult diseases.
“This generation of children right now is actually forecasted to have a shorter lifespan than their parents,” said Bagley, who works at Black’s Mill Elementary in Dawsonville.
Spurred by lethargic lifestyles and poor diets, Georgia's childhood obesity epidemic is breeding a new generation of obese, sickly adults -- a problem that already costs the state billions of dollars, experts say. But tackling a problem that threatens Georgia's economy is a daunting task at a time when states, schools and families are being squeezed financially.
Faced with ballooning health care costs, Georgia state leaders, medical providers, schools and others are calling new attention to childhood obesity.
Gov. Nathan Deal recently launched the SHAPE initiative -- a statewide program designed to promote fitness and healthy living among Georgia's youth. Starting next school year, districts will give students in physical education classes annual fitness assessments, called Fitnessgrams.
"SHAPE alone isn't going to solve our problem," said Brian Castrucci, head of the Maternal Child Health Program in the Division of Public Health. "It's going to help us understand our problem."
Nationwide, obesity rates tripled for children and doubled for adults over the past three decades. Georgia is among the worst states with 37.3 percent of its children ages 10 to 17 overweight or obese, according to the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health.
The medical cost of childhood obesity has risen from $35 million in 1979-1981 to $127 million from 1997-1999, said Steve Onufrak, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Though that doesn’t seem like much, the greater medical costs are really waiting down the road because obese children are likely to become obese adults," Onufrak said.
Obesity costs Georgia an estimated $2 billion in medical bills, lost productivity, disability and death, according to state figures. Obesity rates have a big impact on Georgia’s economy, Castrucci, said. Employers looking to relocate aren’t going to choose a state with high rates of obesity and diabetes, which lead to greater absenteeism and higher health care costs, he said. “This is a fight for Georgia’s future."
Georgia is fighting for its future with fewer dollars thanks to the Great Recession.
The state is investing a little more than $1 million into the SHAPE program for the first year, though it's making a multi-year commitment. But the effort is also funded in part by the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, which have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"The tighter the budget, the more creative we have to be," Castrucci said.
The best intervention for children is for parents to be good role models, he added. "There is no cost to take a mile walk after you get home from work."
SHAPE, which will look at cardiovascular fitness, flexibility and other measures, could reach more than 1 million students, said Therese McGuire, health and physical education program specialist with the state Department of Education. The data will be a jumping off point to help improve fitness programs, curriculum and policy standards, McGuire said.
At Black’s Mill Elementary, physical education teacher Sarah Pruitt has used Fitnessgrams for years. Students have made significant progress in the 1 mile walk/jog test, she said. Last fall, 180 students were below the healthy fitness zone; this spring that number was down to 127.
Her classes also play Monopoly on a huge board where kids have to dance, do jumping jacks and other activities. They play tennis and other sports on a Nintendo Wii video game system.
“Fitness is not about being athletic,” she said. “It’s about getting out and finding something that you like to do.”
Part of the Dawson County Schools district, Black's Mill is one of 270-plus Georgia schools working with the nonprofit Alliance for a Healthier Generation. The school has started selling a la carte items in the cafeteria that are 150 calories or under. Teachers get students moving with "jamming' minutes" -- one-minute exercises they do randomly during the day.
School budgets are tight, but some changes don't cost much, said Adrienne Gil, Georgia relationship manager for the alliance. It's about looking at the schedule and integrating physical activity and health education when possible, she said.
At Campbell Elementary in Fairburn, instead of throwing pizza parties for birthdays, classes go to the gym to hoola hoop and play on the Wii.
Schools alone can’t curb America’s childhood obesity problem, experts say.
It's an issue fueled by poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyles, limited access to parks and recreational facilities, availability of nearby grocery stores with fresh produce in low-income areas, limited time for families to cook healthy meals and other factors.
When Dawsonville mother Amy Burns grew up, her family had three television channels and no video games. Today, she’s raising two boys, ages 6 and 11, in a drastically different world.
“It’s so saturated now with phones and video games and 200 channels,” Burns said. “I think it’s a constant battle just to get your kids to move.”
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