The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity in Mississippi public elementary school students significantly declined between 2005 and 2011, according to a new report from the Center for Mississippi Health Policy.
The report, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Bower Foundation, sought to evaluate the impact of the 2007 Mississippi Healthy Students Act on childhood obesity. According to data from the 2011 Child and Youth Prevalence of Obesity Study (CAYPOS), the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity in the state dropped from 43 percent in 2005 to 37.3 percent in 2011, a 13.3 percent decrease that was dubbed statistically significant.
“Beginning in 2009, we knew something was happening, but there really wasn’t anything that was statistically significant, which means it could have been chance, or fluctuations up and down,” said Theresa Hanna, executive director of the Mississippi center, to