WEDNESDAY, March 30, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- The well-being of America's children is the best it has been since 1975.
But gains in the safety and behavioral categories are being partially offset by declines in health, driven primarily by the obesity epidemic, according to an annual report released Wednesday.
"The overall picture is a positive one," confirmed Kenneth Land, project coordinator for the index and a professor of demographic studies and sociology at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "The remarkable thing is that improvements in the safety and behavioral categories we've seen in the last 10 years brought us well below the levels of 1975 to 1980. The late baby boomers were doing more marijuana, smoking, binge drinking and violent crime in the '70s than their kids are today."
The 2005 Child Well-Being Index was released by the Foundation for Child Development, which funded the index.
This year, child well-being received an overall score of 104.56, a very slight improvement from 2002's 104.48 and a gain of 4.5 percent since 1975.
The Safety/Behavioral Concerns Domain has shown the most improvement since 1975, and in 2003, was 44 percent higher than the initial score. The gains were attributed to improvements in teen birth rates; violent child victimization and criminal activity rates; smoking and alcohol and illicit drug use.
Violent criminal activity among adolescents has dropped more than 64 percent since 1974, while violent crime victimization of children has dropped more than 38 percent. Teenage births have declined nearly 37 percent. Rates of smoking are also dropping, from 36.7 percent in 1975 to 15.6 percent in 2004. Binge drinking, however, rose from 27.9 percent in 2003 to 29.2 percent in 2004, although that is still lower than the 36.9 percent seen in 1975.
The decreases in violent crime are probably due to a strong economy, increased community policing and the waning of the crack cocaine epidemic beginning in the mid-1990s, the researchers said.
"The 1990s saw tremendous declines in violent crimes among minority populations," Land said. "The 2000s have seen slight declines among white adolescent teenagers, which is a large group, so slight declines have a national impact."
Many of the changes relate to parental control and tight scheduling of teenagers' time, be it music, soccer or language practice, Land said.
"When kids are not in programmed activities, they are likely to be playing video games inside the house, which protects them from violence but it's a low-energy activity, so it contributes to obesity," he added.
And that was one of the less positive aspects of the report. Overall, child health experienced declines solely as a result of obesity this year.
"This is mostly due to the increasing obesity of children and adolescents, which was roughly a tripling of the rates since the 1970s," Land said. The overall score in this category in 2003 was 17 percent lower than 1975 levels, despite improvements in infant and child mortality.
"The [obesity] epidemic is absolutely caused by our lack of interest in making this a safe environment. Our genetics haven't changed. It's our environment," said Cathy Nonas, director of the diabetes and obesity programs at North General Hospital in New York City and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "This is a crisis and we're not doing anything about it."
Nonas pointed to declining physical activity both in and out of schools, and lack of safe parks for kids to play in.
"We don't have adequate opportunities for kids to do much except sit in front of the computer or the television," she added. "We have a lot of work to do and it's all our fault."
In other areas, the message was mixed.
On the positive side, the index showed improvements in "community connectedness," largely because more young adults are receiving college degrees and more young children are attending pre-school. There have also been recent decreases in the suicide rate.
On the other side of the equation, student test scores in reading and math have stayed stagnant, more children are living in poverty today than 30 years ago and the social relationships score is lower than in 1975, largely due to more children living in single-parent families.
The question is whether strategies that caused improvements in the safety and behavioral realm can realistically be extended into the health realm.
A national effort, largely responsible for the decline in teenage pregnancy, might be replicated in other areas, namely obesity. "There are a lot of groups who would like to do something about obesity but there is little coordination," Land said.
"We have to be optimistic," he added. "We have to believe that intended action and policies can make a difference. Clearly, it has taken us a generation to develop this obesity problem, and it's probably going to take us at least a generation to slow it down, reverse it and go down in the other direction."
More information
Visit the Fund for Child Development for more on child well-being.
