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Free Health Screenings Target Obesity

Faced with widespread obesity and a lack of health insurance in his state, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin has established a program to conduct comprehensive health screenings for all kindergartners without health insurance.

BY: | January 30, 2008



About one-third of U.S. children are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, according to an annual survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Faced with widespread obesity and a lack of health insurance in his state, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin has established a program to conduct comprehensive health screenings for all kindergartners without health insurance. Set to begin with the 2008-09 school year, the Kids First Screening Initiative will check vision, hearing, speech, growth and development, and will look for signs of imminent obesity. It is estimated the program will serve roughly 1,100 children this fall at a cost of about $160,000. West Virginia is the first state to use federal dollars from their State Children's Health Insurance Program for such an initiative. Idea Center featured a similar program aimed at pre-schoolers in September. To learn more about the West Virginia program, visit www.wvkidsfirst.org.


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Elizabeth Daigneau
Elizabeth Daigneau

Elizabeth Daigneau is GOVERNING's managing editor.

E-mail: edaigneau@governing.com
Twitter: @governing

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