The Dangers Of Childhood Obesity

Childhood Obesity And Its Dangers

The dangers of childhood obesity cannot be taken lightly anymore. Being obese is a serious threat to a child's health. Childhood obesity and the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual disease it brings, is now epidemic. Currently, as many as one in three children in the United States today may be overweight or obese! In 1970, only about 4 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds were obese. By 2000, the rate had increased to more than 15 percent.

Being obese during childhood dramatically increases the risk of obesity during adulthood. This increased risk is due to poor eating or exercise habits developed during childhood, metabolic and hormonal changes caused by being overweight or obese and eating abnormalities based on the poor self-esteem and depression often associated with obesity. Parents should take concrete actions to reduce these dangers of childhood obesity.

The dangers of childhood obesity include increased risk of childhood diseases that were rare. Such diseases include type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, early hardening of arteries, soaring cholesterol levels, sleep apnea, stomach and pancreas disease, liver and gall bladder disease, increased cardiovascular risk factors, early arthritis and many more. In fact, the American Heart Association estimates that 27 million children under the age of 19 have high cholesterol and that 2.2 million have high blood pressure.

Childhood obesity can yield emotional and social trauma as well. For years we've known that chubby children are teased and bullied by their classmates, which can lead to the danger of low self-esteem. Not until recently did we learn how badly obesity affects children emotionally and socially. In 2003, University of California researchers compared quality of life scores of obese children with those of healthy, normal-weight children and children with cancer who have had chemotherapy. Obese children are five and a half times as likely to report an impaired quality of life as healthy, normal-weight children. Even more shocking, severely obese children rate their quality of life as about the same as children with cancer who have been treated with chemotherapy!

In addition, children who are obese are often considered to be lazy when, in reality, physical activity is much more difficult for them than for children of normal weight. Excessive weight stresses children's joints and may cause leg or back pain when they exercise. Obesity also reduces their endurance, making exercise more difficult. Last, but not least, low self-esteem or depression, which often accompanies being overweight or obese, alters the production of brain chemicals that influence the desire for activity.

Further dangers of childhood obesity is that an obese child will have significantly more difficulty losing weight and maintaining weight loss throughout life. Why is this? That is because children who become obese do so by dramatically increasing the number and size of their fat cells. Obese children make five times more fat cells than leaner children. Weight loss in the later life of the child will only cause a decrease in fat cell size but not fat cell numbers. Thus, the propensity for an obese child to put on weight later is way much higher than a normal healthy child.

Therefore, a critical part of raising highly healthy children is to prevent them from becoming obese and thus reduce the dangers of childhood obesity.