BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its first comprehensive guide on evaluating and treating childhood obesity in 15 years. The new guidelines highlight the lack of access to nutritious food at affordable prices as a cause of obesity.
"The main reason we would consider childhood obesity to be an epidemic is because the rates are increasing very rapidly within the last couple of decades," said local pediatrician Dr. Kehvon Bekarev.
According to data from the national hunger relief organization Feeding America, 22.8 percent of children in Kern County are food insecure, meaning they lack access to the kind of food a child needs to thrive and lead a healthy, active lifestyle.
"Factors that play into what things that are available to your person: What kind of food they have in their environment, what kind of food they can afford, what type of exercise and activities they have access to, what type of things they can afford," said Bekarev.
One local organization helping to increase access to healthy food for local kids is the Boys and Girls Club of Kern County. The Boys and Girls Club provides free meals to children enrolled in their after-school program.
Chelsea Dow, Nutrition Coordinator for BGCKC, says kids don't always have experience with healthy foods, so providing it directly is often the best education.
"There is always going to be that child out there that needs a little extra something. People still need to learn how important it is to continue to eat healthy and get all these different ingredients in them, such as vegetables and fruit. You can go to the convenience store and buy a bag of chips, but you can't always buy a vegetable and a fruit," said Dow.
Dow says that during covid, the Boys and Girls Club saw the need to expand their nutrition program, as kids were staying home from school and weren't having a school lunch every day. Now, those meals are prepared at the Armstrong Youth Center on Niles in Bakersfield and delivered to kids all across Kern County.
"We serve roughly 4,800 meals daily to children all throughout Kern County and even up in to the Gorman area. So Lamont, Arvin, here within Bakersfield, and Fraser, El Tejon, and Gorman. We reach all the way up there as well," said Dow.
Dow adds that the Boys and Girls Club makes it easy for children to receive these free meals.
"The meals are 100 percent free to any child under the age of 18. The family can come pick up the meal. Right now, there are still a few waivers until the end of the year, but until those are done, then we will go back to the children needing to be present to pick up the meals," explained Dow.
Community resources like the Boys and Girls Club can help tackle the child obesity epidemic, but according to Dr. Bekarev, access to healthy food isn't the only factor that leads to obesity.
"There are genetic factors, family factors, social factors, environmental factors," said Bekarev. "So many things that play into how much weight is on a person's body."
