childhood obesity threat to our public

Childhood Obesity - A Threat to our Public Health

About 33% of US children and adolescents between the age of 2 and 19

years old are overweight and 17.1% of those are obese

"If we don't take steps to reverse course, the children of each

successive generation seem destined to be fatter and sicker than their

parents." Dr. David Ludwig made this statement in an editorial he

wrote in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, in

response to the findings of two published studies of childhood

obesity. Both studies looked at the effects that childhood obesity

will have on the future health of overweight children. One study

followed 277,000 Danish students for decades by evaluating detailed

health records. The study found,

...the more overweight a child was between ages 7 and 13, the

greater the risk of heart disease in adulthood. The older the

children are, the higher the chance for later heart risk. So, for

example, a boy who was heavier than his peers at age 7 had a 5

percent increased risk for later heart disease, but a boy who was

heavier than his peers at age 13 had a 17 percent greater risk.

If these findings aren't startling enough, there's more. The most

obese child in the Danish study was at a 33% greater risk for heart

disease in adulthood. Yet, the fattest boys in the entire Danish

sample are barely considered overweight by US standards. Barely

considered overweight by US standards! Think about the implications of

that finding. This means that the risk for adult heart disease for

Americans is most definitely even greater than 33%.

Now combine this information with the findings out of UCSF which state

that:

if the number of overweight children continues to increase at

current rates, then by the year 2035, the rate of heart disease

will rise to 16 percent or as many as 100,000 extra cases of heart

disease attributable to childhood obesity.

Although it may not seem like it now, it won't be long before we are

standing on the threshold of a Public Health crisis. The economic

costs of this strain on our health care system will be enormous. A

surge in serious illness (and obesity also increases the risk for Type

2 diabetes, kidney failure, limb amputation and premature death)

translates into lower worker productivity, job loss and in the end a

dying economy.

Pretty bleak forecast and in the meantime, not a lot is being done to

turn this crisis around. Our kids continue to lead more sedentary

lives, snack on junk food, eat fast food for meals, be inundated with

ad campaigns for these dangerous foods and then be served them in

their school cafeterias.

I don't mean to say that nothing is being done to attack this

epidemic. The State of Arkansas began a health report card for all

students in grades K -12. At the end of every year students are sent

home with a report their weight, BMI etc. Apparently there have been

some positive results. When the fact that their child is overweight is

staring them in the face some parents and kids take action; however,

the program is purely elective, so it is unclear which families are

opting in and which families are not being counted.

School systems have instituted nutrition and exercise programs with

some success. For example, a research group, The Healthier Options for

Public Schools, followed 3700 students in a Florida county over 2

years. School districts instituted an intervention program in 4

schools and the results were measured against two schools that did not

have a program. The intervention program included dietary changes,

increased exercise and nutrition awareness. There were dramatic

changes in the kids who had intervention, however, when those students

returned from summer vacation, most had reverted back to their old

habits.

The good news is, that with education, changes in lifestyle and

healthful diets, this trend can be reversed. The broader and more

daunting question, is how? When the cost of healthy eating is often

too high for low-income families and fast food has become the norm

because families are too busy to sit down for a meal, and our entire

population has become sedentary, it appears that we are doomed to fail

our children. The issues are economic, cultural and political. But if

we do not create a comprehensive national strategy to attack this

problem, it will soon be too late.

We have in our communities a perfect storm that will continue to

feed the childhood obesity epidemic until we adopt policies that

improve the health of our communities and our kids," Frank

Chaloupka, an economics professor the University of Illinois at

Chicago.

So what do we do? There are countless competing issues. On the one

hand, we have a culture that is unhealthy and overweight and on the

other hand we have a "body image" obsessed society. There are issues

of self esteem, bullying, and stigmatization attached to obese kids

yet we also want to teach our kids to like themselves for who they are

and not for what they look like. The one thing is clear, however, we

cannot stay on this trajectory and if we do we will be doing a