Health

Toolkit Helps Schools Monitor, Reduce Obesity

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Reducing childhood obesity is a shared goal in the health and education fields. How to actually measure and accomplish that goal can be difficult.

On Monday Chula Vista Elementary School District and San Diego County officials released a toolkit for school districts intended to reduce childhood obesity.

The Body Mass Index Surveillance Kit is a how-to guide for schools developed by the Chula Vista Elementary School District and the County to measure and reduce obesity among students.

“This is a playbook for school districts to use to collect information about the health of their students, and reduce the number of overweight and obese children in their schools,” said Chairman Greg Cox, County Board of Supervisors. “We encourage all educators to take a look at this toolkit to see how they can use it in their districts.”

Chula Vista Elementary School District, the largest elementary school district in the state, has been recognized locally and nationally for its work in reducing obesity through school-based programs. The district’s Height and Weight Surveillance Project led to a renewed focus on health in schools and in the community, and resulted in a 3.2 percent decline of obese students from 2010 to 2012.

The materials developed for the Height and Weight Surveillance Project make up the Body Mass Index Surveillance Kit. Among the resources are communication tools for staff and parents, recommendations for collecting and reporting data, guidelines for healthy height and weight, and background on issues associated with childhood obesity.

“This project has been essential and has led to many efforts that have undoubtedly impacted the health and wellbeing of children in our school district,” said Dr. Francisco Escobedo, Superintendent of the Chula Vista Elementary School District. 

In 2012, Chula Vista Elementary School District was awarded the San Diego County Public Health Champion Award for South Region, and in April was named the County’s first Live Well San Diego school district. Live Well San Diego is the County’s ongoing initiative to improve the health and safety of residents that was launched by the Board of Supervisors in 2010.

View Body Mass Index Surveillance Kit (PDF)