The Relationship Between Body Mass Index in Children and Insurance Type, Parental Eating Concern, Asthma, and Allergies

Introduction: Trust for America's Health reported rising levels of obesity contributed to increased disease rates and health care costs (Levi et al., 2013). Factors associated with overweight and obesity rates include lower socioeconomic status, public insurance, and increased chronic disease rates. Methods: Body mass index percentile, health insurance, parental eating concern, asthma, and allergy information were evaluated from a dataset of 870 de-identified health assessment records. Results: Among overweight/obese children, we found significant differences in children insured by Medicaid (26%) versus commercial insurance (15.9%), children with asthma (22.1%) versus children without asthma (14.8%), and children with known allergies (7.8%) versus children without known allergies (16.7%). The difference between children with parental eating concerns (3.7%) and children without (18.1%) was nearly significant. Discussion: The associations depicted can assist pediatric providers in recognizing risk factors for overweight/obesity among their patients. Combating obesity in childhood can improve health outcomes.