Kids fatter but teen pregnancies down

Violence and pregnancies among American teens have decreased in recent years but children are getting fatter, according to government figures released on Friday.

Overall child mortality is also down, the annual Report on America's Children showed.

"The teen birth rate hit a record low," said Dr. Duane Alexander, Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health.

"Our youth are less likely to commit violent crimes or be victims of violent crimes," he told reporters.

Government officials who put together the report, on the Internet at http://childstats.gov, said most of the trends were headed in the right direction.

Children born in 1979, by the time they turned 15, had an arrest rate of about 1 arrest for every 122 children born that year for crimes such as rape, assault and robbery, said Lawrence Greenfeld, the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the U.S. Department of Justice.

But for children born in 1986, the violent crime arrest rate was half that, he said.

Children were also less likely to be victims of crime.

"These data show that while in 1993, there were about 44 incidents of serious violence experienced per 1,000 youth age 12 to 17, by 2002, the rate had dropped to about 11 per 1,000," Greenfeld said.

He said the "dramatic" reduction in violence had been "especially true of black males age 14 to 17, for whom the rate of murder is well below half what it was in 1993."

PREGNANCY DOWN

Teen pregnancies hit a record low, also, said Alexander, dropping from 25 births per 1,000 girls age 15 to 17 in 2001, to 23 in 2002.

"The drop in adolescent birth rate is one of the biggest success stories," he said. "This drop is a continuation of a trend that began in 1991," he added.

Regular teen smoking is at its lowest level since 1975, when such information was first collected. In 2003, 5 percent of 8th graders, 9 percent of 10th graders, and 16 percent of 12th graders admitted smoking cigarettes in the past 30 days.

Illicit drug use leveled off, with 10 percent of eighth graders aged 13 and 14 admitting illegal drug use and 24 percent of seniors, aged 17 and 18.

But 16 percent of children were overweight in 2002, compared to just 6 percent in 1980.

"This increase in overweight jeopardizes our children's future, making them vulnerable to chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension previously associated more with adults than with children," said Edward Sondik, Director of the National Center for Health Statistics.