Minority Fifth Graders Face Health Obstacles, Study Finds
WEDNESDAY Aug. 22, 2012 -- Black and Latino fifth graders in the
United States are more likely than white students to be obese,
to get too little exercise, to witness violence and to ride
without seatbelts and bike helmets, all signs of significant
disparities that could put their health and safety at risk, a
new study finds. Yet, despite what researchers characterize as
"striking" differences in how black and Latino children are
faring compared to whites, their report gives clues about what
may lie at the heart of it -- and it's largely not race or
ethnicity itself. Instead, the analysis showed that when
household income, family education level and the schools the
children attended were taken into account, some of those
disparities disappeared. In other words, a black or Latino child
from a similar economic background, attending a similar school
and whose parents had an equal level of education did about as
well as a white child from the same demograp