Overweight and Obesity Rates for Students in New York State

I grabbed the Student Weight Status Category Reporting Results: Beginning 2010 dataset. After looking it over, I wanted to dive into how the obesity rates change by date for each county. In the data set, there is one measurement done in the 2010-2012 year range, and the other done in the 2012-2013 year range. 

First, looked at the average obesity and overweight percentages for each county's school districts and compared by year. For this, I used a slope graph to make it easy to see which counties are increasing in obesity as time goes on and which are decreasing. Orange is increasing, blue is decreasing. The biggest jump is in Hamilton, beginning at 18.87% and ending at 43.10%. Schoharie also has a large jump, and finishes as the county with the highest obesity and overweight percentages. In the 2010-2012 study, Schoharie began at 35.64% and by the 2012-2013 study, it was at 45.80%.

Since I live in Onondaga County, I was interested in looking a little deeper at the numbers. First, overall for the county, the numbers remained largely the same, with a slight increase from 33.5% to 33.72%.

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After looking at the overall numbers for all counties in the state, I looked a little closer at each school district within Onondaga County. Some school districts did not report obesity and overweight figures in each study, and in these cases, I removed the district. While overall in the state Onondaga County was largely flat from the 2010-2012 study to the 2012-2013 study, within Onondaga County the numbers are more volatile. 

Syracuse City Schools have a large jump, beginning at 32.2% and ending at 41.5%. Meanwhile, Fabius-Pompey Central School District observes almost no growth in obesity and overweight rates, but still maintains the highest percentages, beginning at 44.4% and ending at 44.9%. Both Baldwinsville and Tully School Districts had relatively large declines in obesity and overweight measures, beginning at about 33% and ending at about 30%. Fayetteville-Manlius School District has the lowest obesity and overweight rates, and even manages to reduce them slightly from 23% to 22.5%.

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Last, I was interested in how the change in grade level affects students' obesity and overweight rates. The yearly changes analyzed above are looking at school districts as a whole. Grade level is looking more at individuals on a broad scale. The results are interesting.

Despite Fabius Pompey Central School District having the highest obesity and overweight rates by year, they actually see a large decrease in rates from elementary to middle/high school years. The district has the largest percentage of overweight and obese students in elementary school at 54.80%. By middle/high school, though, the district has dropped into the middle of the pack relative to other Onondaga County schools at 33.95%.

Fayetteville-Manlius remains at the lowest rates versus other county school districts, and continues to see a drop from elementary to middle/high school from 24.55% to 20.1%. Syracuse City Schools increase from 36.7% to 38.45%. Onondaga Central Schools have the highest jump from 33.35% to 45.50%.

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There are some clear differences in school districts. What do you think causes them? Any other insights you can glean from the data?