Are Asian Americans the Fittest Kids in California?

By Jeff | Sunday, March 14, 2010 | 9 Comments

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Are Asian-American kids the most fit in California? They are if you exclude Filipinos and Pacific Islanders. According to Kidsdata.org, the percentage of Asian-American 7^th and 9^th graders in 2008 who meet all fitness standards is greater than any other California ethnic group including whites. Physical fitness is measured through the California Physical Fitness Test, which looks for passing a minimum in the areas of upper body strength, flexibility, aerobic capacity, body composition, abdominal strength, and trunk strength. Asian-American 5^thgraders slightly trail white 5^th graders, but as you can see, this advantage is later lost by 7^th grade. Filipino-American kids are less fit than whites, and less than 30% of Pacific Islander 9^th graders are considered overall fit. Healthy weight data shows similar patterns.

Ignoring the debate whether Filipinos are Asians, it doesn’t seem surprising that Filipino-American kids are less fit. Filipino food, while delicious (I’m biased of course) is not exactly the healthiest, and Filipinos are said to be the most sedentary of Asian-Americans. I am not really sure what is happening with Pacific islanders. I suspect that a partial cause of these health statistics is a correlation between income levels and health, but Filipinos again complicate this by having a high household income, mainly because there are often more wage earners in a Filipino household (three in my household as an example).

I find it highly ironic that given stereotypes of Asian-American kids not being athletic, they are the fittest, and African-Americans, stereotyped to be athletes, are among the least fit. These stats are also damning with regards to physical education and youth sports. I’m not saying that there are no benefits from youth sports (I’ve coached for a number of years). But given that fact only 35.6% of all California 9th graders can pass the fitness minimums, the large amounts of money spent on youth sports facilities, and how few actually make it to elite levels, there needs to be a better return on fitness for all children.

h/t to The Wife who found these stats in the Mercury News.

Categories:

FamilyHealthLifestylesSportsWTF

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joshychau

Is it possible that Asians are more fit in California because of a combination of sheer numbers and climate?

I feel as though smaller Asian (or non-existent) communities don’t exactly create happy and healthy environments for Asian children. I remember being generally unhappy that there weren’t other kids like me (I grew up in a non-existent Asian community) and because of that stayed inside more often.

That’s where my mind jumps to when reading this post.

BTW Filipinos are Asian because otherwise I can’t take as much pride in Pacquiao owning so hardcore at punching people in the face.
http://twitter.com/Luv4theGame Philip

I think Jeff mentions that Filipinos are Asian because those categories separate Asian-Americans vs Pacific Islanders vs Filipinos, which Filipinos tend to have their own category on some California forms and sometimes causes confusion on whether or not Filipinos are Asian.

Perhaps in the future, more Asians can fight to have their own individual categories in California statistics like the Taiwanese.

Jeff, do you know if SouthEast Asians and South Asians are included in those statistics as part of the Asian-American category? or is just exclusive to East Asians?

This is all I can find regarding the explanation of how they defined the ethnicities – “Defining Demographic Groups: The definitions of racial/ethnic groups often vary by data source. In some cases, for example, the category “Asian” includes Filipinos and Pacific Islanders, while in other cases data for Pacific Islanders and Filipinos are broken out separately. “
asiangirlprof

I wonder how much of this has to do with class. As a general rule, in America, obesity is linked with poverty. I don’t know what how the socioeconomic statistics of Pacific Islanders are compared to other Asian groups, but that might be something worth considering.
joshychau

The Taiwanese category should exist in an argument about classification of nationality. Asian-American is a classification of genetic and socio-economic status in the US.

If we’re going to argue about this we should take it to a forum about “which box” we should all check (I think I should have a box that says I’m “Chinese-from-the-Philippines-but-identify-closely-with-Taiwanese-because-my-parents-were-pushed-off-the-mainland-in-pursuit-of-their-capitalist-dreams-too”).

Political agendas regarding PROC and ROC do not extend explicitly into Genetic/Socio-Economic identifiers in America.

I just want to view Pacquiao as someone I can admire who is like me, and I find it easier to do so when I think of him as Asian.
http://www.8asians.com/author/ancientone95131/ jeffat8asians

Phillip, that’s all I could find also. I would assume that Southeast Asians and South Asians are included in the Asian American category because they aren’t broken out separately and don’t fit in any of the other categories.
azuresong

I bet it has to do with the body composition element. Asians are skinnier than everyone else.
http://fastforwardacademy.com/ enrolled agent study guide

Are you Filipino Jeff? Because I am…

And I do agree that our food is definitely not always cooked with health in mind but rather with our taste buds.

Adobe and lechon, anyone?
http://www.8asians.com/author/ancientone95131/ jeffat8asians

Yes, I’m Filipino. I’m always up for lechon — after all, I don’t have it every day (that’s my favorite rationalization)!
dragonsgold

I’m with asiangirlprof, I bet you would find that the Asians kids who are the most fit come from middle to upper middle class families, and white kids who are in the same social class are probably comparably fit. However, there are more white kids and African American kids in lower income levels, and fewer of the Asian kids, so results would be skewed that way.

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