By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - US adolescents are falling woefully short of national health goals, according to the results of a Minnesota survey.

About 13% of girls and 17% of boys are in the heaviest weight class, while the federal government would like to see numbers closer to 5%. Only 30% of girls and 43% of boys are getting the calcium they need, instead of upwards of 75% hoped for by Healthy People 2010, the US Department of Health and Human Services program designed to improve the health of US residents.

Also, less-than-desired numbers of youth report eating the recommended amounts of fat, grains, fruits and vegetables, the findings indicate. Not surprisingly, minorities and adolescents from poorer families appear worse off than their white, more privileged peers, the researchers report in the May issue of American Journal of Public Health, journal of the American Public Health Association.

The findings are based on a survey of 4,746 adolescents aged 11 to 18 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, conducted by Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and colleagues at the University of Minnesota.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Neumark-Sztainer said that unhealthy children often grow up to be unhealthy adults, and the only way to prevent that is to put adolescent health and nutrition "on the agenda."

She stressed, "This is a serious problem."

Healthy People only sets goals, which can then be used by organizations to design health-promoting interventions. Neumark-Sztainer recommended that schools establish programs to teach children about nutrition and physical activity, and that policymakers evaluate, and perhaps alter, the types of foods that are served in schools and low-income communities.

Often, food that is the cheapest and most readily available to adolescents is high in fat and calories, the researcher noted. Children who grow up in low-income communities are also often surrounded by fast-food restaurants, and may live in areas where it is not safe to exercise outside.

The children in the study sample have a long way to go before reaching the Healthy People 2010 objectives, Neumark-Sztainer said, but some goals are not yet out of reach. "I think it's only possible to achieve if the objectives are taken seriously," she said.

Neumark-Sztainer added that targets for obesity may be especially difficult to reach, but she said that decision-makers can at least try to stop the proportion of obese adolescents from increasing.

"I'd like to think it would be possible to reverse that trend," she said

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