Childhood Obesity may be a Young Generation‘s Greatest Challenge

Aug. 13, 2003

Kids living on a diet of soda pop, candy, high-fat snacks and fast food are literally killing themselves and creating huge health care problems for the future with a generation stricken by diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis and dozens of other disorders related to obesity.
That‘s the message of a growing body of medical research which has identified childhood obesity as a problem of epidemic proportions.
“The problems related to obesity are just overwhelming,“ says internist M. Eleanor Beal, M.D., of the Physician‘s Weight Management Center in Traverse City. “Treating obesity is something I really care about. I think it‘s the most undertreated problem we face today. Not only is it a medical problem, but a social problem and a problem of depression as well.“
Personable and articulate, Dr. Beal feels so strongly about obesity that she established her new clinic a month ago knowing that health insurers don‘t cover medical weight management until patients reach such a state of morbid obesity that they require drastic measures such as the stomach-stapling procedure of bariatric surgery.
“I‘ve been practicing medicine now for 20 years and have found that the problems related to obesity are just overwhelming,“ Dr. Beal says. “We‘re just now waking up to this as a real problem.“

NOT FUNNY ANYMORE
Making light of the problems of fat people still gets a chuckle on TV talk shows, but increasingly, the laughs are dying away as the dots are connected on what it means to be grossly overweight.
Take children, for instance. Dr. Beal says that overweight children can have spontaneous bone injuries as their joints slip in overburdened hips. They suffer from early onset of coronary artery disease, are at risk for polycystic ovarian disease, fatty infiltration of the liver, and many other disorders which result in the deaths of some 300,000 Americans each year.
Then too, between 15-45% of all new adult-onset cases of diabetes are now occurring among children. Diabetes can lead to blindness, severe circulation disorders resulting in amputation, and early death, among other problems.
“For a child to be destined to be a diabetic from the age of 10 years old means being destined for a life of terrible disease,“ Dr. Beal notes.
Nationally, according to Pediatrics magazine, nearly one out of seven children suffer from obesity, and those numbers are growing. The number of children who are considered obese has doubled in the past 20 years, and more than 15% of young people between the ages of six and 19 are considered obese. According to one study, obesity has increased by 75% among teenagers in the past three decades.

EMOTIONAL PAIN
Beyond the medical problems, children suffer intense emotional pain from obesity.
“The emotional pain of obesity is so extraordinary, and depression goes with it,“ Dr. Beal says. “To allow these children to realize that they have choices they can make themselves is a critical factor in reshaping their eating habits to get more pleasure from nutritional foods.“
Ironically, obesity may start in the prenatal stage, due to a mother‘s bad nutrition habits.
“If a mother is malnourished in her first trimester, the baby‘s brain reacts to utilize nutrients at a greater rate than other children,“ Dr. Beal says.
Born with a predilection for being overweight, these children face the cruelties of their peers. The sense of being an outsider can lead overweight kids into depression.
“The fact of the matter is that kids aren‘t very nice to each other and that‘s just the way it is,“ Dr. Beal says. “Overweight children feel how others feel about them and act out in response. Fat kids are not going to be invited to participate in ways that other kids are.“

E.R. ENCOUNTER
Dr. Beal has spent the past eight years in emergency medicine at a hospital in Missouri. She earned her medical degree at the University of Minnesota in 1981; practiced internal medicine in Minneapolis; and was a flight surgeon with the U.S. Air Force during Desert Storm in the early ‘90s. During a tour of Japan in the Air Force, she was struck by the fact that Japanese kids eat a number of things with gusto that we‘d consider odd, such as octopus or raw fish. The experience reinforced her belief that kids will eat base their food choices on what parents teach them to eat.
On that score, American parents are often lacking.
She offers a story from her days in an area of Missouri where obesity affects a large number of people.
“A mom and her daughter came to see me and the daughter said she was always feeling crummy and too tired to go to school,“ Dr. Beal recalls. “I asked her what she had for breakfast, and she said she didn‘t eat breakfast. She had a Ho-Ho cake and a Coke around 10 o‘clock. Then she said she had Doritos and a soda for lunch and nachos afer school.
“I would be seeing children raised on junk food with minimal opportunities to have good nutrition.“
Unfortunately, the people making nutrition decisions these days are often those who are least prepared to make the right choices: kids.
Dr. Beal says children naturally love sweets and salty foods, and left to their own choices, will tend to make bad decisions. This is one reason alà carte lines in school cafeterias can make a fat teen‘s condition worse. The teen may be confused as to what makes good nutrition and is additionally bombarded by messages in the media to eat, eat, eat. “We‘re in a society is surrounded by food and there‘s also so much advertising to eat all the wrong things.“

*For help with obesity, contact Dr. Beal at Physician‘s Weight Managment Center, ph. 231-933-8843.*

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What you can do to help your child

“The best thing about obesity is that it‘s a treatable condition,“ says Dr. Beal, who advocates behavior modification as part of her medical practice.
That means encouraging your child to make better food choices and reshape their eating habits. Some tips:
• Remove temptation and cleanse your home of junk food, sweets and salty snacks. “Families need to be not having the junk food that children enjoy in their homes.“
• “If you buy it, they will eat it.“ Do away with highly-fattening fast foods, including those which come from grocery stores, such as deep fried chicken and fish. Switch to diet pop.
• Make dinnertime a priority in your home and serve healthful, nutritious meals. Many families are so busy with after-school activities and parental pursuits that they opt for junk food on the fly. “I think it‘s a reflection on how fractured our homelife is now that after-school activities infringe on a family‘s dinner time together.“
• Switch to non-salty snacks such as fruit or unsalted nuts. Don‘t eat in front of the TV.
“A lot of this is just common sense, but there‘s nothing so rare as common sense,“ Dr. Beal notes.