Poll: Latinos Adults Increasingly Concerned with Childhood Obesity, Abuse, Sexting

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Latino, black, and white adults all list childhood obesity and bullying as two of the top-three child health issues, but Latinos rank child abuse and neglect higher, according to the annual National Poll on Children’s Health by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

Overall, adults grew increasingly concerned about Internet safety (the 4th-biggest issue, up from 8th last year) and sexting (up to 6th from 13th).

For Latinos, the issues that increased in concern were:

• Childhood obesity (rose to 1st biggest issue, up from 3rd last year)
• Child abuse and neglect (rose to 3rd from 14th last year)
• Internet safety (rose to 6th from 11th last year)
• Sexting (rose to 7th from 8th last year)
• Teen pregnancy (rose to 8th from 10th last year)
• Suicide (rose to 9th from 13th last year)

Latino adults were less concerned this year with bullying (dropped from No. 1 concern to No. 2), smoking, and school violence.

“This is a reminder that programs that use a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach may not be successful in addressing communities’ child health concerns,” according to the report authors. “Instead, taking differences in community perceptions into account can be a key to successful connections with communities and their concerns.”