More children are extremely obese

A study of Southern California children enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente health plan shows that extreme obesity is not a rare occurrence. The survey of more than 710,000 children ages 2 to 19 found 7.3% of boys and 5.5% of girls were extremely obese. That's about 45,000 children in this study group alone. Extreme obesity is defined as having a body mass index of more than 35. Obesity is defined as a BMI of more than 30, so these children are significantly heavier than that.
 
The survey found that 12% of black teenage girls and 11.2% of Hispanic teenage boys had extreme obesity. The authors of the study, from Kaiser Permanente, warn that this level of obesity often continues into adulthood and carries many health risks.
 
"Our focus and concern is all about health and not about appearance," a co-author of the study, Dr. Amy Porter, said in a news release. "Children who are morbidly obese can do anything they want -- they can be judges, lawyers, doctors -- but the one thing they cannot be is healthy."
 
The study was released Thursday in the Journal of Pediatrics. For more information on a healthy weight, visit the Partnership for a Healthier America and Kaiser Permanente. Information on how to calculate BMI can be found at this website at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
 
-- Shari Roan

Comments

[Margaret Wilde]

The public are being given inaccurate information about what causes child obesity and the best way/s to reduce it.

When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

Because children have much smaller bodies than adults it would be best if they had no more than half as much salt as adults. Most children, however, have much more than this because they eat so many snacks and instant foods. Just one cheeseburger, for instance, contains almost double the recommended daily salt maximum for children. There are high amounts of salt in packet soups, instant noodles, ketchup and sauces, sausages, burgers and savoury snacks. Fat children will lose weight fast if they eat less salt. And even faster still if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and unsalted vegetables, because these are rich in potassium, which helps to displace sodium from the body. Overweight children should not be put on a diet; dieting is harmful and unnecessary and does not usually result in weight loss. Once children start dieting it is often the beginning of a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and increasing weight and ill-health.

Unfortunately bread contains a lot of salt and most families eat quite a lot of bread because of using it for sandwiches in packed lunches, and for toast, etc. Because of its high salt content bread is not a healthy food for little children or for anyone who is overweight. Some bread manufacturers have lowered the salt content of certain loaves, but most bread still usually contains 0.5g or more of sodium per 100g. This is too much. - Always check on the packet; look for the lowest sodium content.

Cheese is often recommended as being good for children because it contains calcium, but cheese is not really good for children because it has a high salt content. So don't give them a lot of it. Children can get plenty of calcium by drinking milk and by eating yogurt (but avoid the sort of yogurt that has lots of chemical additives).

[sarah]

I believe "extreme" obesity in children is measured by their ranking in the percentile, not just BMI like adults. I think it's something like 1.2*95th percentile. anyway it's less than 35, more like 31 or 32. Still very serious, though.

[David]

It's not salt that is causing the obesity epidemic! It is the erroneous diet recommendations from the government - 300 + grams of carbohydrates daily. I will bet you that if the kids stopped eating all those carbs they would lose the weight. Another issue is that high carb foods are cheaper then high protein foods.

[Philip]

There’s an interesting post over at the Health Journal Club that makes the case that people should just not eat anything that wasn’t a food 100 years ago. Gets rid of the aspartame, bleached GM flour, high fructose corn syrup garbage they try to pass off as food these days. If interested you can read on it here,
http://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/2010/01/100-year-diet.html

[Fat Burning Exercise Researcher]

Given the current debate on healthcare reform this post is timely.

I think that the current discussions about healthcare are shortsighted. They do not look to the future.

Healthcare initiatives to date have focussed on providing healthcare to the needy. This is good. But what about addressing the prevention of ill health. Poor personal health practices is responsible for creating the need to address healthcare at this time.

It is said that it is better to teach a starving man how to fish than it is to give him fish to eat.

Much has been written about the obesity epidemic. Obesity, of course, leads to ill health and exacerbates the need to address healthcare.

Why is noone talking about educating children in the subjects of fitness and nutrition in schools? Doing so would contribute to improved health in future generations and therefore diminishing pressure on the healthcare system in the future.

In the meantime, a way needs to be found to educate the current generation in these matters . Information similar to that which is contained in the article about
Fat Burning Nutrition needs to be taught to the general population.