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YORK (Reuters Health) - Obesity rates continue to climb in California schools, but exercise and nutrition programs may be having a positive effect on student health, a new study suggests.

Kids entered fifth grade more obese every year, but they did not gain more weight and their overall fitness improved as they moved to higher grades.

"We accomplished a significant first step and that is to slow obesity," said Dr. William Bommer, a cardiologist at the University of California, Davis, who worked on the study. "But we importantly were not able to reverse it."

The researchers, whose report is published in the American Heart Journal, recorded the fitness gains after California mandated exercise time and healthful eating in public schools across the state in 2005.

While the findings suggest the prevention programs may be helping, they can't prove the programs caused the health improvements.

Obesity is associated with high blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments in children and adults. About 17 percent of children and teens in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In response to rising obesity trends, California required public schools to provide an average of 20 minutes of physical exercise per day for kids in kindergarten through fifth grade, and 40 minutes for grades six to 12. Schools also had to increase the quality and quantity of health education and could no longer serve high-fat, high-sugar foods and drinks.

Bommer's team tracked data from more than six million students in fifth, seventh and ninth grade from 2003 to 2008, after these measures took effect.

At each grade level, the students took fitness tests which included body mass index (BMI) measurements, endurance runs, push-ups and shoulder stretches. The researchers analyzed those test records for changes in obesity and fitness.

They found some encouraging signs. Though the number of obese kids continued to increase (two percent more children were overweight or obese in 2008 than in 2003), the rate of increase seemed to be slowing.

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Student fitness improves with anti-obesity program

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Home » Exercise Programs » Student fitness improves with anti-obesity program