Our Growing Children

Despite a national obsession with exercise and losing weight, today one-third of Americans are not just overweight, but obese. Like weight, the problem has crept up slowly—unnoticed or disregarded—until it reached crisis proportions.

According to the federal government’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 16 percent of kids are overweight—roughly triple the figure from 1980. Preventative medicine has already conquered many childhood infectious diseases. Car seats and bicycle helmets have helped save untold numbers of young lives. Education and legal suits have illuminated the dangers of smoking. But experts fear that without a lifestyle makeover, today’s overweight kids will live shorter, more diseased lives than their parents.

A great contributor to this problem lies within the hallways of our school systems where students have access to vending machines that offer unlimited soda and snacks. Soft drink advertising accounts for more than three billion dollars worth of spending, much of it aimed at children.

In 2002, it was estimated that the soft drink industry paid two hundred and forty United States school districts for exclusive pouring rights in their schools. These schools are actively facilitating the nation’s growing childhood obesity epidemic.

Between 1970 and 1990, milk consumption dropped while soft drink consumption nearly tripled. In the past thirty years, adolescent soft drink consumption has increased tremendously, 65% for girls and 75% for boys. A study showed that for each serving of soda, the odds ratio to becoming obese increases 1.6.

In addition to soda, studies show that teens consume more calories now than they did two decades earlier. One study comparing calorie intake between teens in 1970 and 1990 found that boys consumed 243 more calories per day—and girls 123 more. The most probable culprits are sugary breakfast foods, prepackaged lunch snacks, loaded with sodium and fat, and “super-sized” dinners that are quick and cheap.

Also children aren’t moving. Riding a bicycle or walking to school is almost unheard of. Climbing trees and jumping in puddles has given way to sedentary entertainment, such as watching TV, surfing the internet or playing video games.

Morbidly obese individuals are at one extreme of the distribution and are at an increased risk for numerous conditions that shorten life, including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and cancer, diseases collectively knows as the metabolic syndrome. In the aggregate, they are the principal causes of morbidity and mortality in the Western world, leading many to conclude that obesity is the disease of the twenty-first century and add it to the list of “at-risk” concerns regarding children and teens.

Today when almost everyone has essentially unlimited access to calories, when the remote control and internet have replaced even the most minor of every day physical activities, and single parent families or two working parents will often resort to fast food to alleviate the pressures and time needed to provide dinner to over-scheduled families, an overall weight gain should not be a surprise. The good news is that even modest weight loss (5 – 10 pounds) results in a significant health benefit and is achievable with small lifestyle changes.

Small changes can yield great results. It can begin with education and action - more exercise and less empty calories.