For years, the most specific child weight number anyone could quote for Corpus Christi came from 2013. We set out to write a post explaining why that was the best we had. Then we went through the newest school fitness file from the Texas Education Agency, line by line, and found something better: Corpus Christi ISD numbers from the 2023-24 school year.

Here is what they say, what they do not, and what to do with them as a parent.

The old number

A 2018 paper by researchers at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi reported that in 2013, 53.36% of CCISD elementary students assessed with FitnessGram were overweight or obese. That figure combined overweight and obesity, covered one district, and is now 13 years old. A child who started kindergarten that year is about 18 now.

The newer number

Texas law requires districts to check the fitness of students in grades 3 to 12 who are in a PE class or a substitute each year, and send the results to TEA. TEA posts a large spreadsheet of those results by campus, grade and gender. The newest one covers 2023-24 and was created in November 2025.

FitnessGram does not label children “overweight” or “obese.” It sorts each child’s body mass index (BMI) into a Healthy Fitness Zone or, outside it, “some risk” or “high risk.” We added up every CCISD row in the file, about 11,100 students with a BMI recorded, and compared them with the state total of about 2.1 million.

Grades (2023-24)	CCISD some risk	CCISD high risk	CCISD outside healthy zone	Texas outside healthy zone
3-5	17.1%	30.3%	47.4%	42.8%
6-8	19.8%	29.5%	49.3%	43.1%
9-12	21.8%	22.2%	44.0%	38.9%
All tested	19.3%	27.9%	47.2%	42.2%

Put simply: in 2023-24, a little under half of CCISD students who were measured had a BMI in FitnessGram’s some-risk or high-risk range, about five points higher than Texas as a whole. Roughly 3 in 10 elementary and middle schoolers measured were in the high-risk group.

How to read it honestly

• It is not an obesity rate. “Some risk” and “high risk” are FitnessGram categories, not medical diagnoses, and they do not line up exactly with the overweight and obesity cutoffs doctors use. Do not compare this table directly with the 2013 figure or with national obesity rates.
• Not every child is in it. Only students in a PE course or substitute are tested, and TEA hides any group of fewer than five students. We left out the one CCISD row that was masked.
• It is one district. Flour Bluff, Calallen, Tuloso-Midway, West Oso, Robstown and other Nueces County districts appear in the file separately. We did not combine them into a county number here.
• It is our own math. TEA publishes the campus rows; the district totals above are our sums of those rows, weighted by how many students were tested.

How it fits with the state picture

The newest statewide child obesity survey points the same direction. UTHealth Houston’s Texas Child Health Status Report, updated August 2025 with 2021-2023 Texas SPAN data, found that 1 in 4 Texas school-age children and adolescents have obesity, compared with 1 in 5 nationally. SPAN does not publish a Nueces County figure, and neither does the 2025 Corpus Christi-Nueces County Community Health Assessment for children. The school file is the closest local look we have found.

Why this matters less for your child than you might think

A district number answers a community question: where should help go? Your question is different: how is my child doing? No average can answer that. Your child’s pediatrician can, using your child’s own growth chart over time. If a number on a school report worries you, that visit is the right place to start, and a calm conversation at home matters more than the number itself.

We hold ourselves to a few rules with data like this. We date every statistic. We do not stretch an adult rate onto children or a state rate onto the county. And when we find a better number than the one we have been using, we say so out loud, as we are doing today.

One next step this week

If your child is in grade 3 or higher, ask the PE teacher or school office how to see your child’s FitnessGram results. Read the report together as a snapshot, not a grade, and bring it to your next checkup. Our earlier post on reading a FitnessGram report without scaring your child walks through it.

That is also why Ignite Fit exists: a free ten-week health season for children 8 to 17 in Nueces County, built around movement, real food and family. Parents are welcome at every session, and no parent is ever asked to drop off and leave. We are Catholic and open to everyone; prayer is offered and never required. Season One dates will be announced soon.

In the 2025 Corpus Christi–Nueces County Community Health Assessment, 28.3 percent of people surveyed said they had missed or put off a doctor’s visit in the past year. The most common reasons were time, cost and transportation.

We cannot fix the bus schedule. But we can make sure you know where the doors are. This is a short, checked list of places in Corpus Christi where a family can get a doctor, free vaccines, WIC and groceries, even without insurance. We confirmed each address and phone number on the organization’s own website or the City’s resource guide this month. Hours change, so call before you go.

A doctor for your child, insured or not

Corpus Christi has a federally funded community health center: Amistad Health. Health centers like this see patients whether or not they have insurance. Amistad says it offers a sliding fee scale for uninsured patients, based on family size and income, and it helps families sign up for coverage.

• Amistad Health Pediatrics, 7017 S. Staples St., Suite 101 (78413). Care for children from birth to 18. (361) 994-7255.
• Amistad Health main clinic, 1533 S. Brownlee Blvd. (78404). Medical, dental, behavioral health and pediatrics. (361) 884-2242.
• Robstown: 814 E. Main Ave., (361) 886-3040.

A regular clinic matters more than it sounds. It is where your child’s height, weight and blood pressure get written down year after year, and where a doctor can decide whether a blood-sugar test makes sense.

Free care for a parent with no coverage

Two local clinics run on volunteer doctors and charge nothing:

• Mission of Mercy, 2421 Ayers St. (78404). Free medical care by appointment, including a Tuesday evening clinic, plus help getting prescriptions at little or no cost. It also offers free eye exams for children 5 and older and adults, with a voucher for one free pair of glasses while supplies last. (361) 883-5500.
• Metro Ministries, Dr. James Gabbard Memorial Health Clinic, 1919 Leopard St. Free primary care and vision exams, help with medications, and help finding a permanent clinic and applying for benefits. (361) 887-0151.

Your own health is part of your family’s health. If you have been putting off a checkup because you have no coverage, these are good places to start.

Free vaccines

The Corpus Christi–Nueces County Public Health District gives no-cost vaccines through the Texas Vaccines for Children program to kids 18 and younger who are uninsured, underinsured, on or eligible for Medicaid, or American Indian or Alaska Native. The clinic is at 1702 Horne Road, Room 93, and takes walk-ins or appointments. Bring the Medicaid card if your child has one, the shot record and a photo ID. Main line: (361) 826-7200. There is also a satellite clinic at 710 E. Main in Robstown.

WIC for the little ones in your house

Ignite Fit is for ages 8 to 17, but many of our families have a baby or toddler too. WIC serves pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum mothers and children up to their 5th birthday, with nutrition counseling and help buying healthy food. If your family is on Medicaid, SNAP or TANF, you already meet the income rule. Otherwise, a family of four can earn up to $61,050 a year before taxes, according to Texas WIC’s current guidelines. The City says you do not have to be a U.S. citizen.

• City of Corpus Christi WIC, 1702 Horne Road. (361) 826-1355.
• Driscoll Children’s WIC, 4141 S. Staples St., Suite 403. (361) 694-6767.
• Or apply online at texaswic.org, or call 800-942-3678.

Food this week

The Coastal Bend Food Bank does not hand food to individuals, but it supplies pantries in or serving every ZIP code in Corpus Christi. Call (361) 887-6291 with your ZIP code and they will point you to the closest one. The same office has a free social services team that helps with SNAP, Medicaid and CHIP applications.

• Catholic Charities Choice Pantry, 615 Oliver Ct. (78408). You pick your own groceries instead of getting a pre-packed bag, which helps when someone in the house cannot eat certain foods. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Wednesday 8 to 11:30 a.m. (361) 884-0651.
• Diabetes Food Pantry at the Food Bank, 5442 Bear Lane, on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month. For people already diagnosed with diabetes; bring an ID and proof such as your diabetes medicine, a prescription or an A1C lab result. Prediabetes does not qualify. Each visit starts with a 30-minute class. (361) 887-7979.

The short version

If you need	Start here	Phone
A doctor for your child	Amistad Health Pediatrics	(361) 994-7255
Free care for an uninsured adult	Mission of Mercy	(361) 883-5500
Free vaccines (18 and under)	Public Health District	(361) 826-7200
WIC (under 5, or pregnant)	City WIC or Driscoll WIC	(361) 826-1355
Groceries this week	Food Bank pantry referral	(361) 887-6291
Anything else	2-1-1 Texas	2-1-1

Before you go, gather a photo ID, proof of address, any Medicaid or CHIP card and your child’s shot record. Most places will tell you on the phone exactly what else to bring.

Where Ignite Fit comes in

Ignite Fit is our free ten-week children’s health season for ages 8 to 17 in Nueces County. We are a community program, not a clinic, and the best partner a child can bring into the season is a doctor who knows them. Season One is for 25 children, and dates will be announced soon. Parents are welcome at every session, and no parent is ever asked to drop off and leave. We are Catholic and open to everyone; prayer is offered and never required.

Your next step: pick one call from the table above and make it this week. To hear when registration opens, contact us, email service@ignitehisglory.com or call 361-765-2126.

Numbers about health in Corpus Christi usually arrive one at a time, in a headline, and then disappear. We would rather keep a few of them on the wall where we can see them every week.

So here are the six numbers Ignite His Glory watches, side by side with Texas and the country, with the year each one comes from. Five of them run the wrong way for our county, and one runs the right way. A seventh is missing entirely, and we will tell you why that matters too.

The six numbers

Measure	Nueces County	Texas	United States
Adults with obesity (2022)	44.0%	34.2%	32.6%
Adults with diagnosed diabetes (2022)	15.5%	13.4%	10.8%
Adults with no leisure-time physical activity (2022)	34.4%	27.6%	23.7%
Adults who visited a dentist in the past year (2022)	47.8%	57.7%	63.4%
Children who are food insecure (2024)	29.9%	26.1%	19.5%
Children under 19 with no health insurance (2020–2024)	8.2%	12.0%	5.5%

Sources: the first four rows come from CDC PLACES and BRFSS estimates as published in the 2025 Corpus Christi–Nueces County Community Health Assessment. Food insecurity is from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap (2024 data, released July 2026). Insurance is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, table S2701.

What each one tells a parent

Obesity and diabetes: the adults around our kids

Almost half of adults in our county live with obesity, and about 1 in 6 have been told they have diabetes. Those are grown-up numbers, but children grow up inside them. They shape what is in the fridge, what a family does on Saturday, and how early a doctor starts asking about blood sugar.

One honest note: the health assessment shows a lower county diabetes figure in one of its charts than in its summary table. These are survey-based estimates, not a head count. Either way, Nueces County sits above the national average.

Inactivity: the hour that goes missing

About a third of adults here report no physical activity or exercise outside of work. Kids copy what they see. When an evening walk or a pickup game is normal for the grown-ups, it becomes normal for the children.

The dentist: a quiet signal about access

Fewer than half of adults in Nueces County saw a dentist in 2022, well below Texas and the U.S. We track this because it is often a sign of something bigger: cost, time off work, transportation. The same barriers keep children away from checkups where a weight or blood-sugar concern would be caught early.

Food insecurity: 3 in 10 children

Map the Meal Gap estimates that 29.9 percent of Nueces County children, about 24,950 kids, lived in food-insecure households in 2024. That is higher than Texas and far higher than the country. Worrying about the next meal and worrying about weight can happen in the same house. Cheap, filling food is often the least healthy food.

Insurance: a place where we are doing better

Here is a number that runs the other way. About 8.2 percent of Nueces County residents under 19 are uninsured, roughly 7,200 children. That is still too many, and it is higher than the national rate. But it is well below the Texas rate of 12 percent. It shows that local families and local helpers can move a number.

The number we cannot find

The one number every parent would want here is the share of Nueces County children who have obesity. We have not found a current, published figure for our county alone.

What we do have is statewide. The UTHealth Dell Center’s Texas SPAN report (2021–2023 data, updated August 2025) found that about 1 in 4 Texas school-age children have obesity, compared with 1 in 5 nationally, and that Texas ranks sixth highest for ages 6 to 17. Given how far our adult numbers run above the state, it would not be wise to assume our children are doing better. But we will not print a local child number we cannot verify.

We would rather tell you what we do not know than hand you a number we cannot stand behind.

What to do with these numbers

• Treat them as weather, not destiny. A county average says nothing about your child. It only tells you which way the wind is blowing, so you can dress for it.
• Ask for the measurements at the next checkup. Height, weight, BMI percentile and blood pressure are recorded at a well-child visit. Ask what they mean for your child, and whether any blood test makes sense.
• Close the easy gaps first. If your child has no insurance or the fridge runs short at the end of the month, the Coastal Bend Food Bank’s social services team helps families apply for Medicaid, CHIP and SNAP at no cost: (361) 887-6291, 5442 Bear Lane.

Where Ignite Fit fits

We cannot change a county number by ourselves. We can change one child’s season, then twenty-five of them, and publish what happened. Ignite Fit is our free ten-week health and fitness season for ages 8–17: coach-led training, real cooking, and faith. Season One dates will be announced soon.

Parents are welcome at every session, and no parent is ever asked to drop off and leave. We are Catholic and open to everyone; prayer is offered and never required.

Your next step: register a child on the Ignite Fit page, or call 361-765-2126 with questions.

Here is a number that rarely makes the news in Corpus Christi: about 7,200 children and teenagers in Nueces County have no health insurance. That is roughly 1 in 12 residents under 19, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2020–2024 estimates).

Across Texas the picture is worse. About 12 percent of Texas children are uninsured over the same period, more than twice the national rate of 5.5 percent. In the Census Bureau’s 2024 one-year estimates, Texas had the highest rate of uninsured children of any state: 13.6 percent, or about 1.1 million kids.

If your child is one of them, this post is not a lecture. It is a map.

The numbers, side by side

Children under 19 with no health insurance	Percent	About how many
Nueces County	8.2%	7,200
Texas	12.0%	953,000
United States	5.5%	4.3 million

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates 2020–2024, table S2701. County estimates carry a margin of error of about plus or minus 1.2 points.

Inside the county number there is a pattern worth noticing. Among children under 6, about 5.4 percent are uninsured. Among ages 6 to 18, it is 9.4 percent. Coverage tends to slip as children get older, just as sports physicals, braces and the first signs of blood-sugar trouble start to matter. And for young adults ages 19 to 25 in Nueces County, the uninsured rate jumps to 30.9 percent.

Why a gap matters more than you think

Being uninsured is not only about big emergencies. It changes the small, routine visits where problems are caught early.

A national study of nearly 27,000 children in the New England Journal of Medicine (Olson and colleagues, 2005, using 2000–2001 survey data) found that children with full-year coverage rarely went without care. For children who were uninsured for part of the year, 20.2 percent had delayed care and nearly 1 in 10 had a prescription go unfilled. The authors concluded that children with gaps in coverage commonly skip medical care, including preventive visits.

A later study of more than 34,000 children (Tumin and colleagues, 2019, using 2011–2013 data) found the same thing: a gap in coverage was tied to much higher odds of unmet health care needs, even for children with chronic illness.

Adults here feel it too. In the 2025 Corpus Christi–Nueces County Community Health Assessment, 28.3 percent of survey respondents said they had missed or delayed a doctor’s appointment in the past year. Lack of time, cost of care and transportation were the most common reasons.

The yearly checkup is where height, weight and blood pressure get written down, and where a doctor decides whether a child needs a blood-sugar test. No coverage often means no checkup.

What your child may qualify for

Texas covers children through two programs: Medicaid and CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. According to KFF’s January 2026 table, Texas children qualify for CHIP at family incomes up to about 206 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of three, the 2026 poverty level is $27,320, so that works out to roughly $56,000 a year. Medicaid covers lower incomes.

That is the rough line, not the final word. Household size and other rules matter, and the state does the actual math. If you think you might be just over the line, apply anyway and let the state decide.

Timing matters too:

• Medicaid and CHIP: any time of year. There is no enrollment season.
• HealthCare.gov marketplace plans: open enrollment for 2027 coverage starts November 1 and runs through January 15. If your employer does not cover your family, that window is coming up.

Four ways to start this week

• Apply online at YourTexasBenefits.com, the state’s site for Medicaid, CHIP and SNAP. It also points you to HealthCare.gov if that fits your family better.
• Get free, in-person help. The Coastal Bend Food Bank has a social services team that helps families apply for and renew Medicaid, CHIP and SNAP at no cost. Walk-ins are welcome at 5442 Bear Lane, or call (361) 887-6291.
• Dial 2-1-1 (or 877-541-7905) to find other local help with applications, clinics and food.
• If you already have coverage, protect it. Keep your address and phone number current so renewal letters reach you, and answer them. A missed letter can become a gap.

Have recent pay stubs and proof of address nearby when you sit down; the application will tell you what else it needs.

Where Ignite Fit comes in

Ignite Fit is our free ten-week children’s health season for ages 8–17 in Corpus Christi. Season One is for 25 children, and dates will be announced soon. We are a community program, not a clinic. The best partner a child can bring into the season is a doctor who has seen them this year. That is why getting covered this fall matters.

Parents are welcome at every session, and no parent is ever asked to drop off and leave. We are Catholic and open to everyone; prayer is offered and never required.

Your next step: if your child has no coverage, make one call this week, to the Food Bank’s navigators or 2-1-1. To hear when Ignite Fit registration opens, email service@ignitehisglory.com or call 361-765-2126.

It sounds like a contradiction: a family that runs short of food before the end of the month, and a child whose doctor has started talking about weight. In Nueces County, both are common, and they often live under the same roof.

New county numbers came out this summer. Here is what they say, what the research does and does not know, and what help already exists in Corpus Christi.

The new numbers

Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study estimates food insecurity for every county in the country. Its latest update, released in July 2026 with data through 2024, puts Nueces County well above the state and the nation.

Food insecurity, 2024	Nueces County	Texas	U.S.
Children under 18	29.9%	26.1%	19.5%
Everyone	24.0%	19.4%	14.4%

That is about 24,950 children in our county, up from an estimated 23.5% of children in the 2023 figures. These are statistical estimates, not a head count, but the direction is hard to miss.

“Food insecure” has a specific meaning. The U.S. Department of Agriculture uses it for households that, at some point in the year, did not have steady access to enough food. At the milder end, families eat cheaper and less varied food. At the harder end, called very low food security, people eat less or skip meals because the money ran out.

Meanwhile, the 2025 Corpus Christi-Nueces County Community Health Assessment found that 44.0% of adults here have obesity and 15.5% have diagnosed diabetes (CDC PLACES, 2021–2022), both higher than Texas and the U.S.

How both can be true

Researchers are honest that this link is not simple. A 2022 review in Pediatrics looked at 13 U.S. studies that followed children over time. Overall the evidence tying food insecurity to obesity was mixed. It was stronger in a few groups: young children, girls, and children whose families were food insecure more than once.

So we will not tell you that being short on food makes a child gain weight. What we can say is what parents here already know. When money is tight, the food that stretches is the food that fills: bread, rice, noodles, cereal, the snack that costs less than the fruit. Feeding America estimates an average meal in Nueces County costs $3.20. A family doing that math every week is not making careless choices. It is making hard ones.

A child can be well fed in calories and still not be well fed. That is not a parenting failure. It is a budget.

Help that many families are not using

Feeding America estimates that 71% of food-insecure children in Nueces County live in households with incomes low enough to qualify for federal nutrition programs. Yet the Community Health Assessment found that 51.67% of households in poverty here did not receive SNAP (food stamps) in the past year. That is better than Texas (62.93%) and the U.S. (59.4%), but it still means about half of the poorest households are going without help they may qualify for.

Some parents worry that food assistance itself leads to weight gain. A 2026 review of 75 U.S. studies did not find that. It found no consistent pattern of harm from programs like SNAP, WIC and school meals, and it found that stronger nutrition standards may help children reach healthier weights.

Here is what is available locally:

• Help applying, at no cost. The Coastal Bend Food Bank’s social services team helps families apply for and renew SNAP, Medicaid, CHIP and TANF, in person on Bear Lane or by phone. Call (361) 887-6291.
• A pantry near your home. The Food Bank says it has pantries in or serving every ZIP code in Corpus Christi. Call with your ZIP code and they will refer you to the closest one.
• If someone at home has diabetes. The Food Bank runs a drive-thru Diabetes Food Pantry on the third Thursday of each month, 8 to 9 a.m. It requires proof of a diabetes diagnosis, such as a prescription or A1C lab work; prediabetes does not qualify. Questions go to its Diabetes Hands-On team at 361-887-7979.
• Children under 5. Texas WIC provides healthy foods and nutrition support from pregnancy until a child’s fifth birthday.
• School meals. Ask your child’s campus whether it serves free meals to every student. Under the federal Community Eligibility Provision, high-poverty schools can serve breakfast and lunch at no cost without a family application. If your school does not, the free and reduced-price application is worth filling out.

Say it out loud to the doctor

Many pediatric offices now ask two quick questions: in the last year, did you worry your food would run out before you had money to buy more, and did it actually run out? In a 2010 study of more than 30,000 families, a yes to either one caught 97% of food-insecure households.

If your child’s doctor brings up weight, it is fair to answer those questions even if nobody asks. A plan built for a family with a full pantry will not work in a family stretching every dollar, and a good clinician will want to know.

Where Ignite Fit comes in

Ignite Fit is not a food pantry, and we will point you to the people who are. But the Fuel part of every week is built for real Corpus Christi budgets: water instead of sugary drinks, filling foods that do not cost more, and one change a family can actually keep.

Season One is for 25 children ages 8–17, and dates will be announced soon. It is free. Parents are welcome at every session, and no parent is ever asked to drop off and leave. Prayer is offered and never required.

Your next step this week: if the end of the month is hard, call the Coastal Bend Food Bank at (361) 887-6291 and ask about application help. To hear when Ignite Fit registration opens, email service@ignitehisglory.com or call 361-765-2126.

A number in a county report does not sound like it has anything to do with your fourth grader. It does. The 2025 Corpus Christi–Nueces County Community Health Assessment reports that 44.0 percent of adults in this county are obese, against 34.2 percent in Texas and 32.6 percent nationally (CDC PLACES/BRFSS, 2021–2022 data). That is not a statement about willpower in Corpus Christi. It is a description of the world a 10-year-old here is growing up inside — the streets, the schedules, the grocery prices, the heat, the after-school hours.

Why an adult number matters to a child

Children do not build their habits in a vacuum. They eat what is in the house, move as much as the day allows, and copy what they see. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 23 studies published in Obesity Reviews found that children with a parent who is overweight or obese have roughly twice the odds of being overweight or obese themselves (pooled odds ratio 1.97).

Read that carefully, because it is easy to hear it as blame, and it is not. Odds are not destiny, and the association reflects genetics, yes, but also everything a family shares: the pantry, the work hours, the distance to a safe place to play, whether anyone has time to cook. Those are the parts that can change.

You did not cause a 44 percent county rate. You also are not powerless inside it.

The three numbers behind the number

The same assessment gives you the mechanics of it, and each one has a child-sized version:

• 34.4 percent of adults here report no physical activity or exercise — compared with 27.6 percent in Texas and 23.7 percent nationally (2022 data). When the adults in a household are not moving, children usually are not either.
• 15.5 percent of adults have diagnosed diabetes, against 13.4 percent statewide and 10.8 percent nationally. Many of those adults are the grandparents, aunts and uncles in a child’s family history — and family history is one of the risk factors that moves a child into screening range.
• Food insecurity is higher in Nueces County than in Texas or the U.S. across every racial and ethnic group, according to the assessment’s Feeding America data, reaching 35 percent among the non-Hispanic Black population. Hunger and obesity are not opposites. Cheap, filling, shelf-stable food is usually the food a tight budget can carry home.

When residents here were asked to name the biggest health problems facing this community, diabetes came first, at 38.8 percent of survey respondents. People already know.

And the children we can actually count

Texas-level child data is better than our local child data. The Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at UTHealth Houston, using the 2021–2023 Texas SPAN survey, reports that one in four school-aged children and adolescents in Texas has obesity, compared with about one in five nationally, and that Texas has the sixth-highest obesity rate in the country for children ages 6 to 17.

For Nueces County specifically, our best child-level figures are old — a 2013 CCISD FitnessGram snapshot — which is a gap we say out loud rather than paper over. We have asked for current district results. Until then, the honest summary is this: the adult picture here is worse than the state’s, the state’s child picture is worse than the country’s, and there is no reason to expect our children to be the exception.

What a 10-year-old actually needs

Not a diet. Not a lecture. The federal recommendation, from CDC, is plain: children and adolescents ages 6 to 17 need 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous activity every day, with vigorous activity on at least three of those days, muscle-strengthening play (climbing, push-ups) three days a week, and bone-strengthening activity such as running or jumping three days a week.

Sixty minutes is one game, or a walk plus a bike ride, or the hour between homework and dinner. It does not have to happen at once, it does not require a gym, and it does not require your child to be athletic. It requires an adult to protect the hour.

Two more things worth knowing. Insulin resistance — the body needing more and more insulin to move sugar out of the blood — is the quiet middle step between weight and type 2 diabetes, and NIDDK notes that prediabetes usually has no symptoms at all. And weight is not the only marker of health; a child can gain strength, sleep, energy and confidence long before a number on a scale moves. Chase those first.

Where we come in

Ignite Fit is our ten-week season for children ages 8 to 17 in Corpus Christi: 45 minutes of coached movement, 30 minutes in a teaching kitchen, 20 minutes of faith and character, plus a family night each month so the parents are learning the same things the children are. We are Catholic, and we say so — prayer is always offered and never required. Help here has never depended on what a family believes.

If you have been carrying a worry about your child’s health and have not known where to put it, put it here. Call 361-765-2126 or use the form on our Get Help page and tell us your child’s age. If you want the local numbers in full, they are on our Health Data page, and our 60-Minute Day guide breaks that hour into something a real weeknight can hold.