Who is to blame for mini michelin men?
Written on August 1, 2009 at 8:21 am
It's just puppy fat! Leave him alone!
When I saw Todd today with a horrible sore throat, his father nearly fell off his chair when I made the ‘no jelly and ice cream’ call.
From my perspective Todd looked like he’d had a tad too much jelly and ice cream in his time. A quick jump on the scales and a stand against my wall confirmed that Todd’s BMI is a staggering 24. Now as an adult that is fairly passable. As a kid, that’s officially obese.
For those who want to check how I worked it out, go to http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcsite.nsf/pages/bmi4child.
I see lots of kids who, like Todd have outgrown puppy fat and acquired fat fat. Aussie statistics suggest that as many as one in four children are either overweight or obese.
Rather than that making obesity more normal, there are simply more obesity related problems. You know them all but let me list them;
- Heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- High cholesterol
- Asthma
- Gout
- Arthritis
But you might not know that the single biggest health effect on obese children is low self esteem and depression. In one survey, obese children related their quality of life as lowly as did adults with cancer on chemotherapy.
And obesity is simply not something children grow out of as they get older. Australian research has found that boys who are obese are around five times more likely to be obese adults than healthy weight boys. And obese girls are a staggering nine times more likely to be obese adults than healthy weight girls.
So how is it that we are losing the war on childhood obesity?
A clue to this might be found in a new study released in March this year. A very worrying result was that only 17.1% of parents of children who were overweight or obese by objective measurements thought their kids had a weight problem. And of those who did recognize the problem, few thought it was all that serious, comparing it to sunburn for example. Parents who were overweight were the least likely to see their kids weight problems as an issue.
I think that at least in part, we can blame the eating disorders movement for making parents fearful to tell their children they’re heaving around more kilos than they should be. Now I have to tell you that the evidence suggests that eating disorders are forms of mental illness that require psychiatric intervention. They are not conditions brought about by insensitive comments by mums about the size of their children’s rear ends. I see parents who are terrified of saying their children should hold back from having another packet of chips believing they’ll do some permanent damage to their children’s minds if they speak out.
But as parents and health professionals we owe it to our children to intervene and help them avoid the debilitating effects of overweight and obesity.
Three simple steps to nip overweight in the bud for your child;
1. Insist on breakfast; skipping breakfast is highly correlated with obesity in kids.
2. Drink water; sweet drinks, soft drinks, juice or cordial all stack on the calories. Cut them out altogether.
3. Eat dinner as a family and lead by example. Give lots of passive messages about healthy eating and exercise instead of lecturing.
Bon Appetit!
