What is Fair Lawn doing about childhood obesity?
Karen Tileston, the school nurse in Westmoreland and Lyncrest elementary schools has been a school nurse for 18 years, the past 15 in Fair Lawn. When I asked her if she has seen a change in the size of the students since she began her career, she answered with a definitive yes. As Ms. Tileston says, the increase in the availability of fast food and children being more sedentary contribute to that. The national average of obese children in elementary schools is 15 percent. According to Ms. Tileston, Fair Lawn meets the average with 12-15 percent of our elementary school students being overfed, the preferred word to obesity. She told me that the state advocates that schools refer a child who is over the 95th percentile in weight to a health professional. There are children, as she says, that are over the 95th percentile in weight, but also in height. Those children are not referred because their height to weight ratio is proportional. Ms. Tileston shares the concern of many concerning th
