Significance: The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 15 percent of children are overweight. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this number has tripled in the last 20 years. This is a cause for concern because overweight children tend to have a higher risk of diabetes, increased cholesterol and a greater chance of being overweight as adults. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for contributing factors to obesity in elementary school children. Design: The NHANES surveys are an effort of the National Center for Health Statistics to determine the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. Data from 936 children ages 5-11 from the NHANES 1999-2000 data set were analyzed. A logistic regression was employed to determine which explanatory variable are significant predicators of obesity in elementary school-aged children. The response variable was determined by body mass index. The predictor variables were: television viewing time, computer time, physical activity, caloric intake, race, poverty income ratio, and gender. Results: The results showed that both time spent watching television and caloric intake were significant predicators of obesity in elementary school-aged children. The odds of being obese increased 1.18 times for every hour a child watched television (p=.016). An approximate 95% confidence interval for this odds ratio is 1.03 to 1.35. The odds for caloric intake while significant (p= .026) were minimal, 1.0004 for every calorie consumed. The results of this study indicate that young children who spend more time watching television are at greater risk of obesity. This however was not the case with time spent on the computer. One reason computers may have little influence on obesity is that it is hard to eat food while typing on a computer. It is interesting that physical activity was not significant. It might be that many children are not engaging in enough daily physical activity to distinguish between the two groups. This study suggests that more work needs to be done to find methods to reduce the amount of television children watch. This should be a two-pronged approach employing an educational intervention aimed at both parents and children. The findings that race and poverty did not prove to be significant would indicate that future interventions into the prevention of obesity need to encompass a broad spectrum of individuals. Keyword(s): elementary education, national issues, wellness/disease prevention