Has the Fat Lady Sung?:ABC promotes parental responsibility in piece on obesity in toddlers.

FreeMarketProject.org ^ | 4/28/2006 | Ken Shepherd

[freemarket_kenshepherd]

“How young is too young to start worrying about your child’s weight?” ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas asked, teasing a story by Lisa Stark about the World Health Organization’s new measurements for body mass index (BMI) on the April 27 “World News Tonight.”

“Under the new guidelines for the first time,” Stark announced, “the body mass index will be used for American children under two.”

Stark’s report, however, ended up a surprising departure from the media’s usual scaremongering.

“I don’t think that this is another one of the millions of things that Americans need to obsess about,” said Bill Gallagher, the father of a 15-month old boy. “Yeah,” added mother Anne Favret, “as long as children seem to be healthy and growing well, I think most pediatricians will tell you they’re fine.”

While Stark reported that “doctors insist” that “it’s never too early for keeping track” of a baby’s BMI, she also included some advice from Dr. Christopher Bolling of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, who cautioned parents not to overreact by putting their toddlers on a restrictive diet.

[VOATNOW1]

Some children are allowed to eat and drink nothing but junk food and sodas. By junk food I mean chips and snacks. I have seen this too many times, and do not understand how people can afford this kind of diet. Where they get the money for this is a mystery to me. All I know is that I feel sorry for these children.

[wideminded]

I wonder how much of it is habits, though. I mean if you use food as a pacafier and a reward too much couldn't you be setting up a person for a lifetime of struggling?

A lot of toddlers actually have very little appetite when they are not going through a growth spurt. This is definitely true of our 2-year old, even though he has incredible energy. He could eat as much as he wants but he doesn't want to. Of course most of the foods he is offered are healthy. If he had a chance to eat unlimited sugar or junk food, maybe things would be different.

I think that kids who are extremely overweight probably have a genetic predisposition toward overeating or inactivity or have been allowed to eat too much junk food. As I mentioned, some foods that are considered healthy, such as juice, may not actually be so good for kids because of their high sugar content.

Having grown up in a family in which we were not fed enough, I am suspicious of the motivations of people who put kids on diets. It is also true that some adults with the absolute worst weight problems were started on diets as kids and it seemed to make things worse in the long run.

[RedStateRocker]

Hmmm, my experience was the exact opposite. My father had a stroke and great trouble eating, so mom was always trying to keep him with enough calories; as a result we always had lots of high fat stuff around, took me a long time to start to overcome the habits of a choclate milkshake or two every night...