Childhood obesity in The Week

This week's "briefing" in The Week is about childhood obesity.

Over the last 25 years, the obesity rate has doubled for young children and has tripled for teenagers. As a result, diseases once associated only with adults, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and even cirrhosis of the liver, are on the rise among children. If the trend in childhood obesity continues, experts predict that over the next few decades, it will cut as much as five years off the average American’s life span. “Our kids,” said California health official Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, “belong to the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy could well be shorter than that of their parents.”

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Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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KipEsquire

“The nation now spends an estimated $177 billion a year on obesity-related health care, 83 cents of every health-care dollar.”

That is so preposterous as to summarily disqualify any claim to legitimacy in the rest of the piece.

“In the supersize me culture, there’s just too much food available to them, and too much of it is loaded with fat and sugar.”

It has been conclusively shown by several long-term studies that childhood caloric intake has been constant over the past 50 years or so. The issue, to the extent there is an issue, is one of exercise and exertion, not Happy Meals.

This piece is unscientific, unsubstantiated bunk.
Jardine

Something to take notice of whenever the rate of obesity comes up in the news is that they’ll always refer to it increasing by a large percentage in the last X number of years. That number will always bring the comparison to before 1997. The reason they pick a year before 1997 is that in 1997, they changed the definition of obesity. Obesity probably is going up, but it’s tough to tell by how much when the numbers are inflated by comparing groups measured by different methods.
mellowknees

Wait…I know…let’s give everyone a Wii. ;) It sure gets me off the couch, and I’m a big fat gamer adult.
morley

I’m going to assume IAmNivek is joking, but for anyone who falls for his/her alarmism, the link between MSG and its supposed health problems is inconclusive:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,,1522368,00.html
Sam

We just need to get back to a time when everyone found people more attractive the bigger they are.

Problem solved.
personal trainer

Yes, we know this is a seriuos problem…now, let’s do something about it. Please joint Simplefit.net Memphis Personal Trainers in effort to educate and motivate folks to make a change in their lifestyle…if not for mom or dad – certainly for the children!
Dread Pirate Robert

People have suspected television, trans fats, and high fructose corn syrup, but a recent article on BBC news suggests lack of sleep is a contributing factor…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4073897.stm
bodyweight exercises

refined carbohydrates are 90% of the problem.
fitgeek

Carbohydrates restriction is key to keep insulin levels in check but exercise will also help moderate insulin levels, http://www.simplefit.org/ is a great program for kids young adults and parents.
Yamara

Kids need to eat more.

But I’m a halfling. We throw a party for a kid’s first cirrhosis diagnosis.

All the popular girls need a forklift to leave their homes.
Chevan

Just make sure kids have a negative net caloric intake.

Force them to exercise and give them a lot of high-fiber, low calorie foods (like fruits and vegetables), and they’ll be fine.
mellowknees

ROFL Yamara…omg that’s hilarious.

Seriously, though, High Fructose Corn Syrup *is* a major contributor to childhood obesity, diabetes, and has been connected with cirrhosis of the liver in tests.

This needs to be tackled from several angles, but it’s going to be tough to make changes in America that are needed. Just some of them, as I see it, are:

1) Corn production for sweeteners needs to be less advantageous for farmers. Maybe we could switch to using overabundant corn for bio-deisel instead.

2) Physical Education in schools needs to be FUN and needs to accommodate a range of physical abilities. Kids who are not naturally athletic hate PE and don’t get much out of it. If, on a national level, the focus shifted from getting kids to play games within a rigid ruleset that rewards kids with more natural athleticism to just getting kids moving and having fun, you’d see more kids participating in physical activities.

3) Americans need to realize that we all come in different shapes and sizes. It feels hopeless to a fat teenager. S/he will probably never lose enough weight to look like a model or TV star, so why even try? We put so much value on physical beauty in this country…it’s going to take a LONG time for that value to be applied to physical HEALTH instead.

And, of course, there are a million other factors. But seriously…we need national changes in diet, movement, and attitude before even a dent can be made in this issue.
Mark

Most people blame inactivity. I blame kidnappers. Most of my friends who have kids won’t let the kids walk to school, opting instead to WAIT WITH THEM by the curb until the bus fetches them for the two block ride. Because you never know when the kidnapper, always lurking just out of sight, will jump out suddenly, sodomize (or worse!) two or three kids, and then return to his hiding place, ready to prey again. Or is it pray? No, priests do that. Hmm…maybe it’s the priests’ fault that our children are obese.
Cnoocy

You may want to take a look at the work of people like Paul Campos, who are taking a scientific look at this issue and not finding much there.
Anonymous

I second Cnoocy’s message. http://www.junkfoodscience.com does a great job of dissecting these media scare stories.
iamnivek

It may actually go back to something even older and more sinister. MSG.

MSG actually kills the part of the brain that tells you to stop eating because your full.

Oh ya, it also caused blindness.
ill lich

Sometimes stories like this remind me of the “Gaia” theory of the earth — is it just part of mother nature’s way of limiting human population?

Then I wonder: if the human race figured out a way around obesity, a way to eat what you want, get rotund, and yet avoid heart disease, diabetes and other health problems, would they opt for that?