Children Health

Rising obesity rates and a large percentage of low-birth-weight children are dragging down the overall health of American children in their first decade of life, according to a report tracking the health and well-being of young children in the United States. Though U.S. children overall have seen improvements in their well-being in recent years, children ages 6 to 11 are four times more likely to be obese than their counterparts in the 1960s, the report found. The study, led by researchers at Duke University and the Foundation for Child Development, also found that the percentage of babies born with low weight rose 12.3% from 1994 to 2005, a trend they said was probably tied to delayed childbearing among working mothers and increased use of fertility drugs.

American dream scene: a gorgeous Southern California day. A car-free cul-de-sac on a hilltop overlooking a canyon. A boy and his father, shooting hoops. But stark reality intruded for a brief moment last summer when 40-year-old Wes Wirkkala tripped, stumbled and almost fell. "Dad, what are you doing? Be careful!" his son Nicholas shouted. "We don't have health insurance." At 8, Nicholas knows his family cannot risk any visits to the emergency room.

Critics have called President Bush heartless for his veto last week of a compromise bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. True enough, but the president didn't seem to be leading with his head either. In purporting to defend against a government takeover of the insurance industry, he blocked one of the best options for lifting families from wholly government-paid entitlements like Medicaid and into private insurance paid for in part by parents. SCHIP isn't welfare.

House Democrats would rely less on tobacco taxes than the Senate would and more on cuts to Medicare insurers to pay for a proposed $50-billion expansion of a children's health insurance program. The proposal, introduced late Tuesday, also would eliminate a 10% cut due next year in the reimbursement rate for doctors who treat Medicare patients. Instead, the legislation would give doctors a 0.5% increase in their reimbursement rates each of the next two years when they treat Medicare patients.

Laying down a marker on healthcare, President Bush on Wednesday strongly criticized a push by Democrats and some moderate Republicans to broaden a popular children's insurance program. Bush called the plan a step toward a government takeover of medicine. After months of watching from the sidelines as Congress ignored his healthcare ideas, Bush forcefully reinserted himself into the debate.

Kindergartners and first-graders who haven't seen a dentist in the last year have until May 31 to get a checkup under a new state law requiring an oral screening within the first year of entering California public schools. The law is "a baby step in the right direction" in fighting tooth decay, a chronic disease that afflicts more children than the better-known epidemics of asthma and obesity, said Wynne Grossman, executive director of the nonprofit Dental Health Foundation.

Gerald D. Zaslaw, 63, a leader in the child welfare field, died Oct. 7 in a boating accident near Santa Catalina. Zaslaw was president of Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services in West Los Angeles from 1987 until 2002. After retiring he lived on a sailboat docked at Marina del Rey between long sailing cruises. During Zaslaw's years at Vista Del Mar, the facility opened the state's first high-security residential psychiatric treatment center for children.

Part celebrity media event, part earnest discussion of children and obesity. Such was the first Governor's Summit on Health, Nutrition and Obesity, hosted last week by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The invitation-only event drew about 200 participants, including teachers, healthcare providers, community activists, politicos, physicians and corporations. The guests seemed to agree that a unified emphasis on health might reduce the state's growing population of overweight kids and adults.

Ventura County supervisors Tuesday will debate whether to join a growing movement to provide low-cost health insurance for every child who needs it. A dozen California counties already have enacted versions of the Children's Health Initiative, a statewide campaign aimed at providing coverage for children without access to private or public healthcare.

Orange County is in the running to be one of the first eight areas nationwide to participate in a study of how environmental surroundings affect the health of children, a government researcher announced Tuesday at UC Irvine. The federally funded National Children's Study, sponsored by several health and environmental agencies, will collect information on about 100,000 children in 101 areas across the country beginning in 2007. Their health will be monitored from before birth until they turn 21.