Childhood Obesity According to the Center for Disease Control, childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years.
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Anxiety around children's eating habits often peaks during sweets-laden holidays like Halloween, but the factors that contribute to excess weight in kids extend well beyond special occasions. Most children who are obese—now 17 percent in the U.S.—will carry that extra heft into adulthood, along with the long-term health consequences. Scientists project that today's generation of children will live shorter lives than their parents and have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and atherosclerosis. Despite diverse efforts—from First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPlate nutrition guidance changes—the number of overweight and obese children does not seem to be dropping, which has sent scientists searching for other drivers of the childhood obesity epidemic.
One group at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is enlisting experts from fields as wide-ranging as genetics and communications to try to untangle the intricate web of forces that yields a profusion of pudgy kids. "It's cellular makeup, it's child behaviors and child attributes, it's family behaviors within communities and environments within state and national level policies," says Kristen Harrison, founder of the university's Synergistic Theory and Research on Obesity and Nutrition Group (STRONG) Kids project. "It's incredibly complex." Factors such as heredity, access to exercise, parental food habits and cultural differences in portion sizes are all known to contribute to childhood obesity.
And these factors do not exist in isolation. "What we don't really know yet is how those factors interact with each other," Harrison says. And recently researchers at STRONG and elsewhere have started uncovering additional, surprising drivers of obesity, such as sleep schedules and the frequency of family meals.
Visualization is courtesy of TheVisualMD.com
More to diet and exercise
Getting kids to eat healthfully and get more exercise might sound simple, but the long list of genetic, cultural and environmental factors that lead children to these behaviors are complicated and interconnected, and scientists have just started to understand them in the past few years.
Fresh fruits and vegetables, for example, are not always accessible. Some communities have plenty of grocery stores that stock fresh, healthy foods, whereas other neighborhoods have only fast-food chains and corner convenience stores, making it difficult to get enough healthful items. "A family may be really motivated, but if it takes two bus rides to get to a store that carries fresh produce, it's hard," Harrison says. Outside the family sphere, children are also often confronted with a wide variety of pound-packing options in vending machines and even in school lunches.
Budget cuts at schools have also cut back on sports and physical education programs, reducing the amount of exercise kids get during school hours. And a lack outdoor play spaces like parks and woods can also hamper parents' good intentions. "Parents who live in neighborhoods that aren't safe, aren't going to send their kids to play outside," Harrison says. And an indoor lifestyle makes it difficult for children to get enough exercise to keep their weight down—or lose weight that they currently have.
The researchers are also quick to point out that all the blame cannot fall solely on parents either. "Often people say, 'Well parents, just stop feeding your kids so much,'" Harrison says. "There's an attitude that people are stupid, they're greedy, they don't care. And that couldn't be further than the truth." When parents in low-income communities are asked about nutrition, they know the right answers, he says. They know that their kids should be eating more fruits and vegetables, and less fast food. "So there's something way beyond just education."
Television watching, for example, turns out to be a better predictor of bad eating habits than does parental weight, race and income, and a child's gender and ethnicity—together—according to a study by Harrison and her team. This is probably prompted by child-targeted food marketing, combined with a sedentary lifestyle and snacking while watching. One study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine in 2006 estimated that for every hour of daily television, kids consumed an additional 167 calories.
Visualization is courtesy of TheVisualMD.com
Deeper drivers
Parents, schools and even family doctors might be pardoned if they have neglected to consider some of the newly described factors that might be behind childhood obesity. In one study unconnected with the STRONG Kids Project, researchers in Australia set out to study how sleep might affect weight. They found that, contrary to their expectations, it was not the amount of sleep that mattered, it was timing, says Carol Maher, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of South Australia and lead researcher on the study. Children who went to bed early and got up early were far healthier than those who went to bed late and got up late, even though the two groups got the same amount of sleep.
It could be that those who go to sleep later spend more time watching television. Mornings tend to be better for exercise, whereas evenings are prime computer and television times—which means less exercise, more snacking, and more exposure to food marketing. But, Maher points out, it could also mean that kids who are more physically active during the day tend to get tired earlier, and go to bed earlier.
How often kids eat with their families also might impact childhood obesity rates—one group found that every meal not eaten with the family each week predicted an 8 percent increase in the likelihood that a child would be overweight. And health benefits of home-cooked meals might not be the only reason for this correlation, Harrison says. The simple act of a reliable family meal could also be adding psychological stability. Kids who feel like they have a support system and can manage their emotions tend to be healthier overall. Family mealtimes often provide parents a place to spot behavioral warning signs for depression or other unhealthy stressors.
Harrison hopes data from the STRONG Kids program will help policymakers examine the blind spots in current strategies. Because the drivers of childhood obesity are complex, solutions will have to be so, too, she says. Instead of tackling one factor, "they'd be double-barreled and triple-barreled policies," she says. For example, she said, policies that affect schools could address several of the causes of childhood obesity, such as access to vending machines, physical activity requirements, and even teaching students healthier habits. "If you attack a bunch of the influences at once," Harrison says, "you're going to get a much more powerful effect."
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24 Comments
Add CommentOne might also consider the fact the government has been adding the metal iron to our foods at a higher and higher rate. Iron and sugar have been shown to
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'interact'.
"Cross-Talk Between Iron Metabolism and Diabetes: Interacting Pathways Linking Glucose and Iron Metabolism"
When there is an excess of iron in the body the body cannot assimilate the carbohydrates one eats without it turning into fat.
"Altered Lipid Metabolism in Hfe-Knockout Mice Promotes Severe NAFLD and Early Fibrosis."
They've shown a link between iron and diabetes.
"Iron in fatty liver and in the metabolic syndrome: A promising therapeutic target;"
Hmm - junk food sponsors of all major children's TV programs? Putting junk food into those TV programs? Allowing companies like MacDonalds to sponsor (and feed) schools?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlenty of reasons why people are getting fatter, but what it really boils down to is capitalism.
For one thing.... it isn't "capitalism" that is the problem... take a gander at the bellies on the Soviets before the fall of the USSR.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor another... we see a lot of interesting but ultimately pointless reductionism.... as if it were possible to whittle the problem down to one or a few magic bullet solutions.
We see mention of sleep timing and TV watching as being associated with overweight-ness.... and the immediate and unfounded politically-correct nonsense that it is the evil commercials that destroy the health of kids.
what is truly wrong is that the commercials actually work..... it is that we see people who are adrift and not all that aware of their environment and who hose themselves by that lack of awareness.
They bumble along through life never really contemplating the life they live.... unaware in difficult to define ways.
So too, with the sleep timing.... it is unlikely that the timing is all that important per se.... but that those two habits of sleep tend to be associated with two ways of life and their associated attitudes.
What we see is not some tiny few, easy to manipulate, lifestyle choices that results in ill-health.... but people who are sick in their hearts and souls.... and whose shallow, empty, ill-considered lives would and will find a way to be sick no matter what they do with their eating and sleeping habits.
What do I mean by saying it is sad the commercials work?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere isn't a commercial on earth that can manipulate a rational person... other than the bare communication that a product exists.... without which knowledge you would never know it was for sale.
If you have people who are so easily manipulated there is no saving them.... they are adrift goofballs... whose amble through life is as random as that of a buzzing fly.
If people are beset by irrationality in things that demand rational thought.... and also try to impose too much order on on things of the spirit.... there is no saving them until they get their heads "right".
You cannot make rational decisions according to whims.... and you cannot write inspired prose or poetry according to some rigid prefabricated formula.
We see unhealthy people who are sick from leading themselves astray by goofily buying into the bunk fed them by manipulators... be the manipulators sellers of products or sellers of superstitiously accepted politically-correct ideas. It is not so much that the manipulator is at fault but that the 'mark' is gullible.
We see, likewise, prose and poetry and other creations that are not worth the time it took to type created by college professors who desperately think they can learn to write by too closely over-analyzing the work of others scanning for that magic formula that will allow them to write great works of great worth while leading a worthless, too-easy, too-sheltered life.
And so we see the unhealthy... by the swarm... who are nice in their own individual neighborly way.. but who... in the end analysis... are sick and unhealthy through and through because they pretty much make themselves sick by living an ill-considered, unexamined spiritually impoverished life.
The one thing you can always see in them is they are forever taking the shortcut of swimming through life like a fish in a school of fish. They simply do very nearly the same thing as those around them without any thought of what or why they are doing it.
They are lazy.... as a habit of thinking... and seek to avoid all effort by, paradoxically, making a great effort to avoid effort by studiously trying to do exactly what everyone else is doing so they need not exert any independent effort.
They are clueless that they have made life harder for themselves by trying so hard to make it too easy.
And so they end up disgusting lard-bellies with an endless supply of complaints... and even if their bellies we denuded of the lard... they would find a way to be sick, all the same.
Im guessing there is a sinister plot to make money off the misfortune of others... Bring in the drugs then lock up the people using them... Add things to the food and make money off the sicknesses.... Add distractions to our minds and make money off the flow of redirredcted persons... We are prisoners of autonomy... Wanna fix obesity....? FOLLOW THE MONEY....!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's lazy and ignorant parents...bad parents. The same mothers who wouldn't allow their children to be in a car without child restraint are the same ones that drive those children to a fast food joint to eat crap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople know the fat, sugar and salt in high doses in fake food is bad for their kids. They don't care enough to do anything about it. Crappy parents are responsible for fat kids...period.
Society should be more outraged at a mother stuffing her toddler with a french fry than not securing her toddler in a child restraint seat. She's a bad mother regardless of how much she loves the kid.
I find it amazing how many people here, among supposedly studied people, raise their fists in anger at capitalism - money etc..... at any opportunity, for every ill - as though disease, disaster, famine, war were all inventions of capitalism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find that if you point the finger at capitalism, money, success, you are really stating: "I am incapable of clear reasoning and directing my own labor and life, and hence, despise those that have worked for what I should get for free".
E-caroline said it well - The lifestyles and "get out of work at any cost" mentality is what it boils down to. This article says it in a more wordy manner - too much work to get fresh food, too much going on to go to bed at a reasonable hour, too much work to get a family together for dinner. In other words: too much work to stay fit and too many people trying to sell you something.
It NOT the commercials, it's not the fast food, not the candy and not evil capitalist. It's not the iron, it's not the genes (though at least they have a small non-controllable influence). Fat is a choice - the reasons are far more obvious that the article makes out. People CHOOSE to get fat because they can and will do anything a human can get away with to reduce their workload. As long as the left can continually convince people that they are not responsible for their own actions and persecutes anyone who dares to think on their own, this trend will continue - intolerance seems a much bigger issue for the "tolerant".
And frankly, that is just fine with me - it reduces the competition for those of us that like hard work, drive the extra mile for vegetables, force our children to sit down for dinner and get to bed at a reasonable hour. As a businessman I get to see laziness from people on a daily basis, and it's not something you "kind of have". People are "go getters" or they are not. Those that are not "go getters" don't last long working for me, but they do complain a lot during their short tenures about people that have more than they do. They don't want to put in their dues, won't work extra hours, won't show up early to clean out their work vehicles... There is always a reason not to work and the lazy will work doubly hard to find it.
"There is always a reason not to work and the lazy will work doubly hard to find it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis might be akin to telling someone with schizophrenia to 'just act normal'. If one doesn't understand a simple slice of **white** bread is assimilated DIFFERENTLY by some people then one really shouldn't be commenting on a science matter. It just shows your ignorance. No insult intended. Imho.
"Effects of Indigestible Carbohydrates and GI of Cereal Products on Glucose Metabolism, Satiety and Cognitive Function in Healthy Subjects; Emphasising mechanisms for glycaemic regulation at the acute, second and third meal"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The results in the thesis provide information to be used for tailoring of low-GI whole grain products, which facilitate glycaemic regulation and related parameters over the course of several meals, with
beneficial implications on metabolic risk factors, weight control, and cognitive function."
It seems that 80% of body energy use is just in keeping it running, some kind of an idle, exercise may add only 10 to 20% of total calories consumption. The level at which the pace of body metabolism is set has influences by lifestile, and even by the state of mind, it can be guessed that a different approach in the way kids are educated, or how their minds and our minds are shapen by the current social-education interactions may change the rate and way our body uses the energy coming from the foods we eat. Salut +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisall BS, I walk 30 minutes per day and two times that in the spring, summer and fall and I eat to keep my weight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmericans are lazy, and dysfunctional, that is the problem.
And who are all these advertisements directed at? KIDS! Advertisers know who makes the purchasing decisions and to whom they should advertise to maximize their profits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about parents being PARENTS and not pals?
Obesity is a disease; so it is highly unfair to blame the victims; it is the fast food industry that is responsible for feeding the nation correctly; which it clearly does not, as it is based on cost-minimization for greater profit. More insidiously, it laces its foods with high salt/fat/sugar concentration levels, which are as addictive as alcohol or cigarettes, as researchers have found.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrain scans have now shown that a fatty whatever-burger raises cannabioid reception levels to addiction status.
It is therefore the role of the Government to regulate the fast food advertising industry by banning certain ad timing for children, excluding addictive sugar drinks in schools and public places, and tax fast food especially for its fat content,
as the Danish Government has just done.
For children's food education through a family eating game, see 'Crunchgame', Youthevity.com
In 1971, Professor Andres Pie-Jodra, from UNIZAR, said: "Fats burn in the carbohydrate's furnace".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContrary to your defeatist rant, the timing of sleep is very important. People that sleep in total darkness tend to sleep more deeply than those that have exposure to light. Thus if you stay up later you have more exposure to light in the morning while you are sleeping where as if you go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier you are more synchronized with the sun and night. This may also have impact on health levels of those in cities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResponse to part 2 of your rant:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst off, saying that it is the victim's fault but no blame accrues to the predator makes you a sociopath. The contemptuous way you treat the vast bulk of humanity while attempting to elevate yourself above everyone else, in addition to being infantile, simply verifies that you are indeed a sociopath. With any luck you will be hit by a car and killed thus making the world a better place. Then we will have one less vermin screwing the world up with their narcisisitic hate mongering.
Mommy issues? Do you include jellyroll in your online handle because you are fat and blame your mom for it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm curious where you think these kids come from since you seem to believe that none of them have fathers. Mommy suddenly got pregnant without ever having sex? That doesn't make any sense. Try to be more realistic and substitute the word "parent" for mother and maybe you might be closer to the mark. Then again maybe not.
My wife is fat and I'm getting there but my kids in their late teens and early twenties are quite thin, primarily because my wife makes (or made) them eat healthy and get plenty of excercise even though she sits around a lot watching television and eating candy.
I've known a lot of people that think like you. Most of them had a lot of money. Most of their money comes from the work of others. Most of them worked hard but all of them paid the people that actually produced value far less than the value their work produced. Last time I saw the numbers run, the average fortune 500 company generated about $600,000 in profit (not just revenue) per worker. That is $600,000 that the average worker is getting screwed out of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is why "the left" are so popular. Not because there are all that many lazy people. Some of them are lazy but mostly because they know that parasites like you are cheating them. This must be why so many of the richest people in America are "the left". After all, of the richest 1% in the country, over half are Democrats calling for more taxes on the rich.
I'm in the upper 25% of the country as far as income and I tend to vote fiscal conservative but don't sit there and tell me that lazyness is the root of all poverty and expect me not to consider you a mindless shill for the religious zealot fascists.
That theory is widely disputed and is increasingly rejected by those that actually do double blind experiments. Remember that the doctor that originated the theory used only anecdotal evidence and not real science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is clear that some people are sensitive to the proteins in grains but since his entire sample was people that were already sick and most of the general population ARE NOT SICK, his results are clearly not universal. If you have a particular illness that may be caused by grain proteins it makes sense to eliminate them but it is certainly not a magic bullet.
I hate it when I agree with you but that was probably the most intelligent comment on this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank U
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSunnystrobe,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObesity IS a disease that manifests itself in myriad ways, and you're right; it is not helpful to blame those who are so afflicted.
I am an alcoholic, and I have done far more damage to myself and those that I love than any morbidly obese person ever could. It's no good blaming me either.
But in order for me to recover, I must take responsibility for my actions, whether people blame me or not, whether I am accepted for who I am or not.
I am accountable for what I do. I'm also about 50lbs. overweight, and I'm accountable for that as well. This is the paradox: Until I accept myself completely for who I am, I'll continue act irresponsibly.
While your "sick in the soul" hypothesis is not strictly framed in scientific form, your observations are disturbingly salient. Indeed we find ourselves living in a sea of mental drones . . . whether idiots or with PhD's. It is a truth too sad and obscure to enunciate, and we don't know the cause, but it seems to be a pathology engendered of mass media, and progressive through generations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI went back to work, when my both of my kids were in grade school. When I was home they went out to play after school, then came in and did home work and had a home cooked meal. After I started working, they had a teenaged sitter and later became latchkey kids and stayed in after school. Because I got home after 6pm, and my spouse worked swings, once or twice every week we had fast food or pizza. My older son went from a slim sized pant to a husky sized pant in one year. No one wants to talk about the contribution to obesity of two working parents. As soon as I was able, I quit working outside the home.
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