Posted on 05/18/2008 1:13:55 PM PDT by neverdem
An epidemic of obesity is compromising the lives of millions of American children, with burgeoning problems that reveal how much more vulnerable young bodies are to the toxic effects of fat.
In ways only beginning to be understood, being overweight at a young age appears to be far more destructive to well-being than adding excess pounds later in life. Virtually every major organ is at risk. The greater damage is probably irreversible.
Doctors are seeing confirmation of this daily: boys and girls in elementary school suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and painful joint conditions; a soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes, once a rarity in pediatricians' offices; even a spike in child gallstones, also once a singularly adult affliction. Minority youth are most severely affected, because so many are pushing the scales into the most dangerous territory.
With one in three children in this country overweight or worse, the future health and productivity of an entire generation -- and a nation -- could be in jeopardy.
"There's a huge burden of disease that we can anticipate from the growing obesity in kids," said William H. Dietz, director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "This is a wave that is just moving through the population."
The trouble is a quarter-century of unprecedented growth in girth. Although the rest of the nation is much heavier, too, among those ages 6 to 19 the rate of obesity has not just...
--snip--
Ludwig compares the situation to global warming.
"We don't have all the data yet, but by the time all the data comes in it's going to be too late," he said. "You don't want to see the water rising on the Potomac before deciding global warming is a problem."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“If obesity is such a threat than why does the average life span in this country continue to increase?”
Come on, man. Do the math. The older generations haven’t really been hit by the obesity epidemic. It’s really started with the Boomers—who are bound to die some rather uncomfortable deaths very shortly. Well, many already are.
In 1989, there wasn’t a state in the union that had a 15% obesity rate. Here we are nearly 20 years later and Colorado and Massachusetts are the only two states left who don’t have obesity rates greater that 20%. In 1985, Tennessee had an obesity rate in the single digits. It’s now between 25 and 29%.
This obesity thing is going to be a major, major, major expensive enterprise.
BTW, Type II diabetes is NOT caused by exogenous factors. It's a genetic condition, and can be managed through adherence to the diet it allows. That, along with plenty of exercise (roughly equivalent to a man chasing reindeer all winter long) and you'll live as long as anyone else, be stronger, and enjoy everything else just as much.
This business of a "diabetes epidemic" is total garbage ~ if you don't have the genes for it doesn't matter what you eat, or how fat you get, you won't develop the condition.
“Better YET do you know in my city Los Angeles they introduce new commeircal encourage parents to low fat recipes IN SPANISH on English speaking networks”
I can see why. When I lived in Southern Cali, it was rare to see a Hispanic kid of normal weight. Sad state of affairs for our country ahead...
Right on the money - just go to Wal Mart any afternoon. It’s simply shocking.
Don’t worry in few minutes they always show English speaking commericals on even local English networks here in SO CAL
Yeah I am serious they actually encourage parents to serve their kids more fruit and vegetables
I go to local Latino area supermarket sometime and most of the kids are asking Madre Madre that Spanish for mom
Can I have this? like sugarly cerels and stuff
Not entirely true. You do have a point in that Type II diabetes is a genetically-predisposed condition. But that doesn’t mean that some people are immune to diabetes or that some who are predisposed to it can’t prevent it.
Studies have shown that regular exercise is enough to avert the disease for those even with 2 parents with the disease.
Yes, some people will get it no matter what. But the rates of diabetes are rising. And the reason for that is that increased amounts of body fat lower insulin sensitivity, high sugar diets require greater insulin action and wear out the pancreas, and sendentary activities decrease insulin sensitivity.
Right now Americans are fatter, eating more sugar, and living more sendentary lifestyles than we ever have before. And yes, our rates of diabetes are higher than they ever have been.
“Death an Enormous Threat to Life!” Story at eleven.
The story is about the future, not current longevity.
"They're robbed of the natural enjoyment of being a kid -- being able to play outside, run. If they have high blood pressure, they have a constant risk of stroke."
Our current longevity/mortality is far from uniform.
Since 1983 life expectancy has declined for women in hundreds of US counties, most of them in the south, and for men in a dozen counties.
That immediately increased the numbers of people who could be diagnosed as diabetic, and that's all that happened.
The number has since been misused by diet gurus and those who seek to suppress vital and necessary fats and oils in our meals.
The risk arises out of overconsumption of carbohydrates of all types, whether whole grains, or milled white flour, or pure granulated cane sugar.
Your basic diabetic has a system that can handle maybe 50 to 100 grams of carbohydrate a day, not the 300 to 500 consumed by agricultural mutants. Best to stick to natural roots in the ground, wild berries, and crabapples.
I used to think that there was no great difference between glucose and fructose before I read that paper. If you can't understand biochemistry, just try to understand the abstract, the first paragraph.
Interesting. One of my grandmother’s sisters (my great-aunt) had Type II diabetes. By the time I was 10 or so, she’d had a foot amputated and usually used a wheelchair. I used to go over to her house and hang out, and ride around in the wheelchair. I didn’t learn until years later, when I read her diaries, how much she appreciated the company!
Dude, yes the rates of Type II Diabetes ARE changing. I’m in medical school. They’ve been increasing by 5% per year over the last decade. And this isn’t just limited to the United States.
The 110 mg/dl isn’t the official standard used to diagnose diabetes by the American Diabetes Assocation. Either you have 2 separate fasting plasma glucose levels of >125 mg dl, a random glucose of >200 mg/dl with symptoms of diabetes (polyuria, polydipsia), or a 2-hour fasting oral glucose challenge test with levels of 200.
I’ll agree with you on the dietary guidelines you bring up. We’d be a lot better off on the diet you brought up. Less processed grains, more natural foods. And high fructose corn syrup...that’s just a health problem waiting to happen.
Oh, my goodness. Some people are just willfully ignorant. While not stupid, they make such bad choices. We have those folks in my family, too. They are in all families, I would imagine.
And his college age son who always wanted to be like dad is well on his way.
I have a close relative who is like that. I wish she was different and I have spoken to her as lovingly as I know how, but nothing helps and we've finally decided that it is not worth hurting her feelings. No matter how nicely we put it, she gets sort of bent out of shape, so we say nothing.
Have I mentioned that they blame it on doctors?
For...? My relative blames "genetics".
Could type II diabetes rates be increasing because type II diabetics are living, living longer, and reproducing more (thereby passing on the genetic defect) instead of back in the day, when they lived short lives, and had fewer children?
I tend to think obesity is a symptom of affluence. The wealthier and better off we are:
- the less physical labor we have to do
- the better air conditioning and heating we have
- the more food choices we have (if your choices are limited, you eat less. Oatmeal or eggs every day, I get bored. But add the wonderful variety of sugar smacks, lucky charms, and pop tarts, and I’m eating more, no question)
- the more convenient food is (I don’t have to slaughter anything, or bake in a wood stove, etc.)
- the cheaper the food is
I think it all combines to encourage us all to eat more, exercise less, and get fatter.
IF Type-II diabetes is related to a genetic defect, then it’s highly probable the modern medicine is facilitating the perpetuation of that gene. We can see this with some of the dangerous food allergies. In the past, a person who went into anaphylactic shock when he tasted mustard (or peanuts, etc.) simply died, often in early childhood. Now, they survive and pass on the gene.
It takes a village to fatten a child.
I think that what you say is true to a large degree, but poor people in the US are more likely to be obese than the very wealthy.
I say “but”, but that isn’t exactly correct, because being poor in this country is the equivalent of being pretty well off in most of the rest of the world.
What we have in the US is cheap food that is bad for you and a lack of will, with a lack of education mixed in.
So it is a symptom of affluence, because even poor people here are relatively affluent.
See: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=429074
We spend less money as a percentage of our income than anywhere else on the planet. We have enough money to buy trashy foods, even if we are not wealthy.
I am not suggesting that we raise the price of food, by the way. Trying to manipulate the market to make social changes is never good. I’m not sure what would force people to change. I’m not generally in favor of forcing people to do stuff that is “good for them”, though.
Here is a link that cites a study that says that the wealthy are less likely to be fat: See: http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett042303.asp
“One of the curious consequences of these trends is that the poor are now more likely to be obese than the wealthy. Indeed, obesity is now a problem in developing countries where starvation was the norm not too many years ago, according to the World Health Organization.”
I agree with you here - our poor are not poor in any realistic version of the word. I say this as someone who has qualified for WIC and food stamps more than once. If you have a cell phone, a tv, a car, and a place to live, I just can’t consider you poor. Poorer than me, maybe, but not poor.
Our “poor” do not go hungry. They may not dine in fine restaurants, but they don’t go hungry (obviously).
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