The Health Risk Of Being Overweight

If you are Carrying extra pounds, you are tempting fate in more ways than one.  Overall, being  obese significantly  increases  your  risk  of  developing  the  metabolic  syndrome  and  all  its  potential complications. It  is  so  important  that  you  understand  this  condition  that is why I have decided to write about it.  Without  an  understanding  of   the  abnormal  changes  in  your  chemistry,  it  will  be  impossible  for  you  to  comprehend  why  controlling  carbs  is  a  key  to  prevention  of  diabetes.  Being  overweight  also  is  implicated  in  gallbladder  disease,  a  number  of  forms  of   cancer,  osteoarthritis, asthma, sleep apnea, breathing  difficulties,  complication  of  pregnancy,  polycystic   ovary syndrome[pcos],  and  increased  surgical  risk. 
I  you’re  overweight  and  also  have  low  HDL cholesterol  and  high    triglycerides, there’s  a pretty  good  chance  that  you’re  also  insulin resistant  and  could  be well  on  your  way  to prediabetes   or  diabetes.  Add in high blood  pressure  or  any  other  diabetes  risk  factor and the  odd are  even  greater.  Even  if  you’re  not  yet  insulin  resistant  and  have  normal cholesterol  and  blood  pressure,  you’re  still  not  immune  to  diabetes  and  other  health  problems. The  following  table  gives  you  a  good  idea  of  exactly  how  your  risk  for  a  number of  chronic  diseases   increases  if  you’re  overweight  or  obese,  compared  with  your  risk  if  your  weight  is  normal [BMI  of  24.9  or  less ]

Next article : Tacking your blood sugar or How To Track Your Blood Sugar. Page 77

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ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS TO KNOW IF YOUR CHILD IS AT RISK OF OBESITY

1. I am overweight.                                                                                        Yes                No

2. Other close family members are overweight                                                 Yes                No

3. My child’s BMI for age is above 85^th percentile.                                         Yes                No

4. My child is physically active less than 30 minutes each day.                          Yes                No

5. My child drinks more than one can soda every day.                                     Yes                No

6. My child eats a lot of sugary and salty snack foods.                                     Yes                No

7. My child often eats food.                                                                            Yes                No

8. The doctor says my child has high blood pressure.                                       Yes                No

9. The doctor says my child has high blood sugar.                                            Yes                No

10. The doctor says that my child has high

cholesterol/ high triglycerides.                                                                           Yes                No 

SCORING: If you answered yes three or more times, your child may well be on a path to being overweight or obese if he or she is not already.

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CAUSES OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Causes of childhood obesity, according to data from the third Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII), 82 percent of children aged six to eleven reported eating at least one snack a day and those snacks made up some 20 percent of their daily calories. In order of frequency, the snacks were:
1. Soft drinks
2. Salty snacks, such as potato chips, and popcorn
3. Cookies
4. Non chocolate candy
 5. Artificially flavored fruit beverages
 6. Whole milk and chocolate milk
7.  Two percent milk
 8.  White bread
 9.  Chocolate candy
10. Cake
 11. Ice cream
 12. Fruit
As you can see, the type of snacks most children eat explains in large part why so many of them struggle with their weight. With the exception of whole milk, the only non-processed food on the list is fruit, coming in distant twelfth. With these two exceptions, all the other foods on the list are just high in carbohydrate but low in nutritional value. Most are also made with unhealthy hydrogenated oils. The same survey also showed that more than half of all elementary-school- age children ate on fruit on any given day. The same survey conducted on American kids indicates that the top five sources of calories for the typical American youngster are, in order, whole and chocolate milk, pizza, soft drinks, low-fat milk, and cold breakfast cereal, a particularly high source of sugar.
Three out of ten kids eat less than one serving of vegetables a day. There appalling statistics go long way to explaining why so many children today are overweight. TV trap A lot of junk food is consumed in front of the television.

But snacks aside, TV viewing alone is associated with childhood obesity.

In a study of sixth and seventh graders in California  more TV meant higher weight. Of the teens who watched less than two hours of television each night, 26.2 percent had a BMI (body mass index) at or above the 85th percentile, while among those who watched three or more hours of TV each night, 47.1 percent had BMIs at above the 85th percentile. Of course, even 26.2 percent of a group of kids shouldn't be faced with childhood obesity  but we know from other studies that less TV viewing is associated with a lower weight.

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CONSEQUENCIES OF OVER CONSUMPTION OF LIQUID CANDY

The consequences of over consumption of liquid candy is common with kids. Of all the things kids and adults shouldn't be consuming, sugary drinks top the list. Fruit juice may sound healthy, but it's really not much more than pure sugar in the form of fructose, without any of the fiber and other nutrients from whole fruit. (It takes eight to ten oranges to produce one glass of orange juice.) Recently, a number of supposedly healthy milk-based drinks have become popular, but they are crammed with added sugar. The worst of the worst, though, is most carbonated beverages. A typical can of what nutritionalists call

"liquid candy"

is so heavily sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup that it contains the equivalent of up to 10 teaspoons of sugar, to say nothing of the caffeine in many of them, which is associated with headaches, irritability, and sleeplessness. The average teen today gets about 8 percent of his or her daily calories from soda and other sweetened soft drinks; teenage boys are heavy consumers of soda, often drinking three or more cans a day. In connection with one of my recent article Consequences of childhood obesity, there's a direct link between soft drink consumption and weight gain. For every 12-ounce can of soda a youngster drinks each day, the risk of weight gain and becoming obese goes up.
The weight gain from soda is bad enough, but these drinks also displace other, more nutritionous foods. Today, many teens fall short of the recommended intake DRI of one or more of the following nutrients: vitamins A, B, C, E, and the minerals calcium, iron, and zinc. This is especially dangerous, as young bodies in particular need these nutrients in the proper amounts to continue normal growth and development.

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CONSEQUENCES OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Children who weigh too much get a head start on chronic diseases that ordinarily only develop much later in life. To take just one example, up to 20 percent of obese kids have hypertension.
A recent estimate based on NHANES 111 data says that among all kids ages 12 to  19, about 4.2 percent already have metabolic syndrome. And among overweight adolescents, a staggering 28.7 percent already have it. That means that about 910,000 American teens are already at risk of heart disease,diabetes, and premature death.

The problem is even more severe in minority communities. In Nigeria obesity is more common with kids from wealthy families. Among overweight Latino children, nine out of ten have at least one risk of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes,and three out three out of ten have three or more risk factors for the metabolic syndrome.

Impaired glucose tolerance is now common among obese kids. In one study at Yale university, 25 percent of obese children ages 4 to 10 were glucose intolerant; 21 percent of obese teens were glucose intolerant. And in the course of the study, the researchers found that 4 percent of the teens already had diabetes and didn't know it.

Heart disease and diabetes aren't the only health problems overweight youth face, they are most likely to suffer from asthma due to the increase in inflammatory chemicals caused by elevated levels of insulin. They also often end up having bone and joint problems for the same reasons. Overweight girls tend to reach puberty and begin menstruating at a younger age. This means that they stop growing sooner than other girls and end up as short, overweight adults. They're also likely to suffer from poly-cystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The underlying metabolic imbalance, combined with a probable genetic component that causes PCOS, makes these girls much more likely to become diabetic as they get older.

Children's mental health can suffer as much as their physical health.

Obese kids are greater at risk for emotional problems and low self-esteem,

and can become isolated and depressed, especially if they're teased about their weight. The flip side of this is that behavioral problems, such as being hyperactive or depressed, can lead to obesity. A study in 2003 showed that normal-weight kids diagnosed with behavioral problem were five times more likely to become overweight over the next two years than youngsters without a problem. Why do these children gain weight? Late Dr Atkins believed it's because they're "medicating" themselves with high-carb (carbohydrate) foods as a way to deal with stress and unhappiness, yet the very foods they use to comfort themselves only make the problems worse. And, according to a recent study, severely obese children (and their parents) rated their obesity as affecting their quality of life to the same extent as that experienced by children going through chemotherapy.

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