Obesity Among US Urban Preschool Children
Relationships to Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status
Objectives To determine whether there are racial/ethnic differences in the prevalence of obesity among preschool children and to determine whether these differences are explained by socioeconomic factors.
Participants Of the 4,898 children enrolled at birth in the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, we analyzed data for the 2,452 who, at the age of 3 years, had their height and weight measured during a maternal survey.
Main Exposures Three socioeconomic indicators were the main exposures---maternal education, household income, and children's food security status, as assessed by the US Household Food Security Survey Module.
The prevalence of obesity was not significantly different between black and white children.
However, among Hispanic children, one fourth of whom were obese, the prevalence of obesity was significantly higher than in either black or white children.
There was a significant inverse relationship between maternal education and obesity prevalence, but there was no significant relationship between household income and obesity or between children's food security level and obesity.
