Kent County has released its first-ever childhood obesity report. The Childhood Obesity Surveillance Report is based on a six-year study that includes data from Corewell Health well-child visits. One of the key findings is that 40% of Kent County children aged 4 to 17 years are considered overweight or obese. WGVU’s David Limbaugh spoke with Jonathan Fuller, a public health educator at the Kent County Health Department about the study’s findings.
Jonathan Fuller: So, the study took place from 2017 to 2022. All the data came from the Corewell Health system, specifically well child visits during that period of time. It came out of a data use agreement that we at the health department have with Corewell. And specifically, there's some work that was done as a result of our community health needs assessment where a community health improvement plan group was created, because childhood obesity was pulled out as one of the issues that the community wanted to see worked on. And so that was one of the community high priority issues that was brought out of that health needs assessment. And so that started the HEAL Task Force, which I'm the chairman of, the Healthy Eating Active Living Task Force. And then this childhood obesity surveillance report was one of the projects that was initiated by that task force back at that time. This was before I was the chair of the task force, but that's where it kind of started from, if that makes sense.
David Limbaugh: With all the issues affecting Kent County youth, what was it about childhood obesity that made the health department want to take a closer look?
Jonathan Fuller: So, one of the things that stood out and made us want to look at this a little bit closer is that there wasn't any local data that was already available. So, this is the first report of its kind in Kent County. So, we had state and we had national data, but no local data. And being that childhood obesity was one of the things the community mentioned they were concerned about, we needed to go ahead and investigate. So, once the report itself came out, and we got that data from Corewell, we noticed that when you look at overweight and obesity in Kent County combined for children, our numbers were at around 40%, which is higher than the state and the national average for that time period. So, we wanted to try and focus on getting some of those numbers down, obviously. And so that is where a lot of this kind of stemmed from was wanting to have that local data, once we got it, seeing what it was. And now we're formulating that response so that we can tackle that issue with our partners in the community.
David Limbaugh: What are one or two things that really stood out to you in the report?
Jonathan Fuller: I think one of the things that stood out to me is that, and this actually didn't make it into the report, but one of the important pieces, I think, that speaks a little bit more to the data that's in there is that two out of 10 kids fell into that obese range as far as BMI class. But within that obese category, 86% of those kids were in obesity class one, which means that they're at about 95th percentile to 120th percentile. So, they're just over the line from overweight to obese. So that, to me, gives a real opportunity for us to turn the tide with some of this. They haven't gotten to the point where they're at class two or class three, albeit they are higher than we'd like, there's an opportunity there. And I think the other thing that stuck out to me is that there appeared to be some very clear trends as far as location within the county. At one point in the report, there's a heat map where it shows how certain communities were harder hit. And so that, I think, warrants more research from us at the health department to try and figure out what might be contributing to that. I assume it's probably multiple factors. So that's something that we're working with our partners in the community, organizations, and just community members to try and get more information from them as to what might be contributing to us seeing some of those disparities.
David Limbaugh: What are some next steps in regard to this report?
Jonathan Fuller: The next steps for us is to broaden and deepen our response to this issue. And the ways that we're doing that is by, you know, working with the partnerships that we have, but also trying to expand and get more partnerships. We have the Healthy Eating Active Living Task Force, and that's a group of organizations and health systems and insurance companies that are dedicated to the childhood obesity issue in the county. I'm looking for more partnerships, though, more people who are interested in helping to uplift that work. Getting more data, I think, would help us as well. So, this report was used with Corewell data, but some of the other health systems, if they would like to take part in some of this research as well, so we get more of a full picture, I think that that could also help our response to the issue. And then also the next iteration of the report. You know, that first report was a six-year baseline effort. The following reports will be on a three-year cycle. So, I'll start working on that next report this year. Then we're going to get more data from Corewell, and we're going to see where we're at currently, you know, from the 2023 to 2025 timeframe. And that'll give us more information on maybe how we're doing and where we can improve with some of these issues as well. So, definitely more to come. And looking for more opportunities to collaborate with the communities that are having some of these issues and finding out ways that we can take the communities lead, hear from them and what they need and be able to provide that to them to help them out. And, you know, wanting to really drive the point home that this report is, it's a starting point, it's a baseline. And what we're hoping to do is to inform and uplift the efforts that people in the community are already doing. It's not meant to be accusatory of any one area. I mean, that's not how that data should be used because BMI has some limitations at the individual level. It really has most of its utility at the population level to kind of see what the trends are. So, if somebody is out there reading the report and maybe they have a kid that's in the overweight or obese range, this isn't some type of an indictment on you at all as a parent. It's mainly just letting you know that there's resources available to you that you can take advantage of and the county's here to help you. to try and navigate that.
David Limbaugh: Jonathan Fuller is a public health educator at the Kent County Health Department. Jonathan, thanks so much for speaking with us today.
Jonathan Fuller: Thank you so much, and I hope you have a good rest of your day.
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