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American Kids and Weight Problems
by Maia Appleby (this
article was recently published in "Metro Parent" magazine).
Here in America, kids and fast food seem to go
together like, well… hamburgers and french fries! How easy it
is, after a long day at work, to swing by a drive-through window,
throw out a few dollars and take dinner home.
 Unfortunately,
this trend in the United States, as harmless as it seems, is predisposing
millions of children to what the former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. C.
Everett Koop called “the second leading cause of preventable
death in America”: obesity.
This is nothing to take casually. Over half of the people in the
United States are overweight and about one out of five could be considered
obese. This number has been growing steadily for over thirty years.
Children these days are really tipping the scales. The 1999 National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), conducted by the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, concludes that about 13
percent of children aged 6-11 and 14 percent of adolescents aged 12-19
are overweight. In the early 1970's, these numbers were 4 percent
of children and 6 percent of adolescents.
Many people assume that children should not have any restrictions
on their fat intake, for fear that they won't get enough nutrients
for their growing bodies. This is not true. Once a child is beyond
infancy, what she eats is setting her up for a lifetime of either
the tendency to become overweight or not. She may eat like a bird
at age 35, but still be heavy due to her childhood eating patterns.
Part of the reason for this is that each person, no matter what
shape or size he is, has a certain number of fat cells, which are
usually formed at two critical periods of a person's life - in early
childhood and at puberty. When an adult eats a lot of fatty food,
the existing fat cells generally expand, causing an accumulation of
body fat. A child who consumes a large number of calories from fat
can actually grow new fat cells. A greater number of fat cells make
it much more challenging to maintain a healthy weight in later years.
Extremely obese adults can have five times as many fat cells as lean
adults. This is a terrible disadvantage that parents should keep from
striking their children.
Obesity isn't just about the way a person looks. Although this is
a big issue in our culture and low self-esteem is a very damaging
infliction that can be caused by obesity, there are many health risks
involved with being overweight.
The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a height-to-weight ratio used to determine
who is overweight or obese. It has been widely criticized (with good
reason) because it fails to distinguish between muscle weight and
fat weight, so theoretically, a body builder with very little body
fat would be classified as obese.
This is not common, though, and researchers still use the BMI. When
height-to-weight charts are made and mortality rates are figured in,
different combinations measure out different death rates. Very thin
people and heavy people generally don't live as long as people of
average weight. Each height-and-weight combination that is attributed
to the lowest death rate is considered the “ideal weight”
for that height. It's an average, and although it doesn't take body
composition into account, it is still a very useful research tool.
Both the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department
of Health and Human Services consider those with a BMI of 20 or higher
to be overweight and 30 or higher to be obese. The higher the BMI,
the higher the death rate.
Aside from having a higher death rate (as if that weren't startling
enough), overweight and obese people are much more likely to develop
potentially fatal health problems including hypertension, diabetes
mellitus, heart disease (the number one cause of death in the U.S.),
and high LDL cholesterol levels.
Carrying excessive fat takes a toll on the body, and many of its
side effects can become very serious. Damage to the back, knees and
skin can occur due to friction and weighted impact, and many heavy
people develop arthritis for the same reason.
Weight control is one of the great enigmas of the past century.
There are countless “experts” out there, making big bucks
to offer a new way of manipulating diet and exercise to make weight
loss as effortless as possible. Deep down, we all know how foolish
this is, but as a culture of shortcuts, it's our nature to keep looking
for an easier way.
Simplicity and moderation are the two key words to most of the good
things in life, and weight control is not excluded. Children with
well-rounded daily lives who eat balanced meals will probably grow
up to be healthier than their counterparts. That's really the bottom
line. What does this mean? Here are some general guidelines that will
help to keep you on the right track:
Ten ways to protect your children from obesity:
-
Don't worry about the number of calories they consume in a day
– kids need a lot to accommodate their high energy levels
and growing bodies. The important thing is where these calories
come from.
-
No more than 30 percent of their calories should come from fat,
and the less saturated fat, the better. Read labels.
-
Most of their diet should consist of complex carbohydrates. Fruit,
breads and cereals are great sources. If they like whole-grain
breads, by all means, give it to them!
-
Make sure that they follow a balanced diet. It's astounding how
many children simply never eat vegetables because they don't like
them. If your kids aren't getting the nutrients they need, ask
your pediatrician to recommend supplements. A body that has to
work overtime to compensate for shortages cannot metabolize fat
(or perform a lot of other routine functions) properly.
-
Teach them low-fat eating habits when they're very young. For
example, give them cooked peas without a slab of butter on top
of them. They'll learn to like them that way.
-
Get them accustomed to skim or 1 percent milk. If you do, they
won't even like whole milk, and you'll be cutting a lot of unnecessary
fat out of their diet.
-
STAY AWAY FROM FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS! Even the meals that they
pitch as low-fat items are high in empty calories and very low
in nutrients. You're better off giving your kids Froot Loops for
dinner.
-
Get them in the habit of drinking lots of water. Kids love water,
once they get used to drinking it. Many times, parents who have
an aversion to it don't offer water to their children, passing
on a very sad legacy. Water is the most effective fat-fighter
in existence, and very few of us take advantage of that.
-
An obvious one: keep them active! Even if you have to unplug
the TV and computer for a week and boot them out the door, kids
these days need to spend more time running around and playing.
-
More important than anything else you can do for your children,
set a good example. If your health is important to you, then your
kids will value their own all the more.
Kids do go through stages. Some kids go through “chubby”
stages in their pre-adolescent years, and then as they begin to enter
puberty, they become skinny and gangly for a while (or these events
can happen in reverse, or even weirder things can happen!) Human growth
is like that. As long as they're leading healthy little lifestyles
that prevail into adulthood, most of them should grow up without any
serious weight problems.
Of course, there are many, many uncontrollable circumstances that
might cause childhood obesity, and the situation may be completely
out of your hands. Genetics have been shown to play a role in body
composition. Many drugs cause weight gain, too, one example being
treatments containing steroids, given to children with severe asthma.
These concerns should be discussed with your pediatrician, who can
offer individualized advice to address such special needs.
For most parents, however, the “weight fate” of their
children depends much more than they realize on habits taught at home.
Although too much emphasis (or any outright emphasis at all) on body
weight can be extremely damaging to youngsters, failing to teach them
how to lead healthy lifestyles robs them of something of immeasurable
importance.
Taking extra measures to encourage leaner living, however, even
if it makes the parents look mean or strict at times, could make a
powerful, lifesaving difference down the road.
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