High body mass index in rural children.

The affordability of food and eating habits, both of which can be affected by the family’s socioeconomic status, are important factors in determining the body weight of rural children 2 . It is most important to know what the children eat, and clarifying “eating at home and at school” from Montgomery-Reagan et al.’s preliminary report seems important. Even more important, however, is the discordance in findings between the US report 1 and a previous report from Thailand, a developing Asian country. The US finding that higher income was associated with a decreased incidence of obesity is in contrast to the Thai report that found a high income to be associated with an increased incidence of obesity. The Thai study hypothesized that wealthier parents tend to provide excessive amounts of highsugar foods for their children, and this can lead to pediatric obesity 2 .