“Mmmmmm...veal.”
Posted on 04/13/2008 9:31:39 AM PDT by billorites
DOZENS of children as young as six and seven have become so obese that doctors are being forced to put them on ventilators at night to keep them breathing while they sleep.
The children, whose breathing difficulties are blamed on overeating rather than any medical conditions, have been judged by the National Health Service to be morbidly obese - weighing as much as four times the normal weight for their age.
The excessive weight bearing down on the chest, together with deposits of fat around the throat and neck, mean the children need ventilators to help them to breathe while they sleep.
Doctors have revealed that the problem, previously witnessed only in obese adults or children with medical problems, is spreading to children of primary school age as the latest consequence of the childhood obesity epidemic.
Many of the children will need to sleep attached to a breathing machine every night for the rest of their lives and doctors warn that they are at “huge risk” of dying because they cannot get enough oxygen.
Those affected include Regan Taylor, 7, from Conisbrough near Doncaster, who weighs 11 stone and is so obese that he has to wear adults’ clothes. He has had to sleep attached to a breathing machine ever since he was admitted to hospital for resuscitation four years ago.
One consultant warned that some children aged just six or seven may need to be considered for stomach-stapling surgery, usually restricted to adults, to reduce their weight and allow them to breathe properly.
Dr Jerry Wales, a consultant paediatric endocrinologist at Sheffield children’s hospital, said: “We have some children who are on nocturnal ventilation while prepubertal, and their life span is going to be limited because of that. This is happening in mid-childhood.
“You could make the argument that the only treatment that has any possibility of saving their lives is [stomach] surgery.
“Noninvasive nocturnal ventilation is a common treatment in adults and is getting more common in children. There is some fat round the airway narrowing it. The chest is also heavy and more difficult to move [when breathing].”
The children are suffering from a form of sleep apnoea caused by their obesity. Paediatric respiratory physicians previously diagnosed sleep apnoea in children with conditions such as enlarged tonsils but say that an increasing percentage of their patients now have the condition because they are morbidly obese.
Dr Rob Primhak, a paediatric respiratory physician at Sheffield children’s hospital, said colleagues in America had told him that obesity was the cause of the sleep apnoea in up to 50 per cent of their patients. Primhak said he was seeing an emergence of the same trend.
Respiratory physicians in London also say that an increasing percentage of their patients have obesity-related breathing difficulties.
“I saw the first case five years ago but we are much more aware of it now,” Primhak said.
“We have had three or four children whom we have had to treat for obesity-induced sleep apnoea.
“So far none of the obese patients I have treated for this have got better.”
Regan, who is one of Primhak’s patients, uses a device called a continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) machine, which holds the airways open. Some children need more powerful noninvasive ventilators.
Regan’s mother, Paula Taylor, is considering putting locks on her cupboards to prevent her son eating all the time. She also has to shop for groceries on a daily basis to reduce the quantity of food available at any one time.
Taylor, a support worker for the elderly, says she has tried hard to curtail her son’s overeating but believes he has a genetic condition that stops him being able to control his appetite. Tests carried out on Regan have, as yet, failed to identify a known genetic condition, but doctors say that he could suffer from an as yet unknown defect.
“I worry about Regan’s weight. I cut down my hours at work so that I could be at home more to keep an eye on him,” Taylor said.
“The doctors have said Regan will always need the ventilator until they control his weight. If his weight comes down he will no longer need it. They tried him on slimming tablets but they didn’t seem to do anything.
“They are now going to put him on tablets to suppress his appetite. As a last resort they will consider surgery.”
Patient groups say the increase in children needing ventilators is evidence that the obesity epidemic has got out of control.
Tam Fry, chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, said: “We are seeing this now because we have failed to monitor the growth of our children and these children are being allowed to become morbidly obese. This kind of case confirms we have a horrendous obesity problem that we have not yet faced up to.”
There are about 1m obese children in Britain, according to the British Medical Association. Estimates indicate that, if current trends continue, at least one fifth of boys and one third of girls will be obese by 2020.
I smell government intervention coming..
Get ready, here comes the fat tax.
letting fat breed - natural selection? people sitting around their entire lives on the dole?
I see it every day here in mid-Missouri at work...I’d say that 40-50% of the patients I care for are morbidly obese...and not just by the ‘governments’ standards which are IMO low.
I can never understand how someone who is say 5’8” gets to 350+ pounds...when they were 5’8” and weighed 250 lbs, didn’t they notice a problem?
And the saddest thing is when you see a young child who is morbidly obese...I’ve seen 10 y.o. kids weighing more than 200 lbs...usually the parents are correspondingly large too.
Being markedly overweight has tremendous health concerns.
Icck. 154 is more than I weigh right now. I see the keyword trolls hit again.
bad/lazy parenting leads to fat kids
It builds. A 300 lb. person doesn't have very many options to lose weight - diet and exercise are more difficult the heavier you are. A fat person trying to exercise will get winded much more easily, and it hurts to move.
This comes from parents who say “no” but are unwilling to make it stick.
Kids need to have a certain amount of healthy fear of authority—and before everyone flames me, let me explain:
Children need to know that when a parent says, “Don’t touch the cookies” the parent means it. They have to know that the parent’s authority vs their disobedience can cause a consequence that the child will not like AT ALL. I don’t care if it’s a suspension of a privilege, a swat on the rear, grounding, or taking away the cell phone.
If parents cannot or will not discipline (make followers of) their children, cannot or will not learn what a child needs to eat and needs NOT to eat, cannot or will not punish a child for eating sweets when told not to do so, then the parents are to blame.
If the parents are also obese, then they need to get up, get moving, and get away from the table.
Where I live, all the original playground equipment has been removed by lawyerial fiat because “we have to protect the children.”
When I was young, we went to a drive-in restruant maybe once a month and it was a treat. Candy and sweets were treats, not everyday snacks. Sodas weren’t every-day drinks either.
Wrong! Have them turn off the X-box, put down the ho-hos and go outside and play. They'll be amazed what regular activity and a healthy diet will do.
LOL! I love her show. Do those Brits drink a ton or what? It seems many of her victims guests would be able to lose weight on their own if they just stopped drinking so much.
Re the breathing devises - once the kids lose weight, they won't have to use them. It's ignorant to say they'll be hooked up to them the rest of their lives. Even adults using the devices can get rid of them with weight loss (assuming the breathing problem is due to weight, not a lung disease).
Yesterday I saw two fatties and their overweight daughter shopping in WalMart’s grocery. The parents were riding the scooters that have carts on front. When they checked out, right behind me, there was NOT ONE fresh fruit or vegetable, not a head of lettuce, an orange or apple, no grapes, not a one, nothing fresh. No frozen fruits or veggies, either. Not even the pre-cheesed frozen broccoli...
There was no fresh meat either—none. All prepared meats, no fish, no shrimp even, everything high fat like corn dogs, chicken nuggets, premade frozen burgers, premade pizzas...not even a box of cereal!
There was no milk, no cheese, no yogurt, nothing—no eggs, no flour, nothing to cook with—no spices—not even biscuits that you have to bake. I bet that family has the cleanest oven in town. Nothing to drink except soda, in 2 liter bottles.
Plenty from the bakery—pies, cakes, Lil Debbie snacks, cookies, the whole sweets bit.
Just two very obese people on riding carts with a fat daughter along to get the stuff off the high shelves....
And they rode the carts out and got into a van in the disability parking, the daughter driving...they walked 3-4 steps from the carts to the van, using canes, the daughter took the carts back.
I have NO sympathy. None.
“Mmmmmm...veal.”
I grew up in a neighborhood with one restaurant and a chinese take-out place, and no McDonalds.
Mom used to give fresh fruit for dessert. NO sweets, except at holidays. Everyone around us was the same.
But healthy food is EXPENSIVE!
(didn’t you know that it’s MUCH cheaper to buy the premade crap???)
I always LAUGH at that...
My dinner budget is an average of $6.00 per night for 4 people...
That’s $1.50 per person.
You can’t really even buy 2 frozen pizzas for that!
LOL!
We certainly have the occasional “oven dinner” we call it with corn dogs or fish sticks (which I hate)..but it’s more of a 1x per week thing during baseball season...
LOL!
I have one kiddo who is on the pudgy side despite playing and playing and playing and having limited TV/Computer/Screen time...
When I talked to the Doctor about it, he wasn’t concerned...just said that he should have 1 hour per day of activity..
We laugh about this...the kid is UP and playing (outside mostly) for probably 3-4 hours per day!
He’s also very, very tall for his age too though...so maybe he will just be a big tall guy...
Anyway...when we go to Wallyworld, we just avoid the snack food isle...
It’s a ZOO in there!!!
LOL!
The people Gillian works WITH do drink a lot, agreed! And man, do they love their food fried!
But what cracks me up is that I’ve never seen a single one like avacados—they all start gagging and making faces and carrying on like she’s trying to poison them or something. Obviously Gillian needs to come to Texas and get some good guacamole recipes, LOL! I could LIVE on avacados by themselves, these Brits don’t know what they are missing! :-)
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