Heart disease. Hypertension. Type 2 diabetes. Liver dysfunction.
Adult diseases only, right?
Wrong. These terms are becoming common in the vocabulary used to diagnose overweight and obese children.
Childhood obesity has become a national epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 16% of all teens and children in the United States are overweight today. Moreover, according to the American Heart Association, today’s figures represent a doubling for children and nearly a tripling for teens compared to 1980s figures. Closer to home, Missouri is ranked in the “Top Twenty” worst states for adult obesity, teen obesity and childhood obesity.
But these facts and figures can oversimplify the human side of this issue. Childhood obesity is also about kids being blamed, ridiculed, disparaged, and humiliated. It is about kids who are less engaged with life than their peers. It is about kids not only dealing with all the pressures of adolescence, but also with their own self-loathing of their body shape and the limits of that body.
For these myriad reasons, it is imperative that multidisciplinary efforts are made nationally, regionally, and locally to reduce and prevent childhood obesity.
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