Children uneven across regions

Unequal in kindergarten. Thibault de Saint Pol, of the National School for Statistics and Economic Administration (ENSAE), recently studied a survey conducted by it in 2005-2006 to 23,518 children of kindergarten and highlighted the relationship between the region in which they grow and the health problems they encounter. In other words, the number of vision problems, hearing, speaking, allergies, obesity and tooth decay of children aged 5-6 years differs depending on the academic trends by region (consumption soft drinks, amount of sleep, time spent watching television or playing video games). Published on Tuesday in the weekly epidemiological bulletin (BEH) of the Institute of Health, these data indicate that toddlers in the north and east of France are more prone to health problems than others.

The north and east more affected than other regions

Thus, while at the national level, over 12% of children of kindergarten are overweight, they are 15.3% in the Academy of Strasbourg and 6.6% in that of Nantes. As for vision problems, the situation is equally instructive. They are indeed more common in the academies of Clermont-Ferrand (29%) and Reims (30.1%) than in Corsica (14.4%) and the Caribbean Guyana (13.3%). If these figures can perhaps be explained by a lack of screening in some areas, inequalities are related to caries, in turn, due to the consumption of sugary drinks. Over 40% of children under 6 years drink every day at 18% against Lille to Nice.