Obesity
Extreme obesity a growing problem in American children
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More and more cases of extreme obesity are being reported in US children, a slap in the face for a country trying to lose weight.
This news comes following a study conducted by researchers from Kaiser Permanente in Southern California, featuring more than 710,000 children between two and 19 years of age.
Many would say “why spend money on a study like this when we already know what the outcome will be?”
Philadelphia gets $25 million to reduce obesity, smoking
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The city of Philadelphia has been picked for two federal grants that could make residents healthier.
Philadelphia will get $25.4 million in federal money to fight obesity and smoking. Dr. Donald Schwartz is the city’s health commissioner. He says the money will be put to use in education and enforcement campaigns.
“The ability to conduct broad-based campaigns like these to reduce smoking and affect obesity is unprecedented for Philadelphia,” Schwartz said.
Vitamin D, Weight Loss, and Obesity
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Vitamin D continues to make headline news. Findings suggest adequate levels may break barriers with individuals battling excess weight.
Research reveals a relationship between vitamin D levels in the body, vitamin D intake, and body weight. While the exact relationship is not entirely understood, a growing body of evidence suggests an association between obesity/excess body weight and D levels exists.
In addition, the link is supported by the fact that obesity and low D are co morbid (occur at the same time) with diseases such as: disease, hypertension, diabetes, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, depression and even periodontal disease.
Childhood obesity: A growing problem
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Obesity has emerged as the No. 1 health problem facing children in the United States, according to a report from the National Institute of Health.
Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the last 30 years. The percentage of obese children ages 6 to 11 increased from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent in 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These alarming rates have pushed national organizations such as the Elk Grove Village-based American Academy of Pediatrics to team up with first lady Michelle Obama and the White House last month in launching “Let’s Move,” an initiative to reduce the nation’s population of overweight and obese children by encouraging healthier eating and increased physical activity.
Obesity inches down in young Chicago children, but rates still much higher than nationally
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There’s a glimmer of hope in new data on obesity in Chicago kids.
The percentage of Chicago youngsters aged 3 to 7 who are obese fell to 22 percent in 2008, from 24 percent in 2003.
That’s according to the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children. The consortium’s Dr. Adam Becker says the 2 percent drop represents about 700 fewer obese children.
Childhood obesity gains, losses
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Fewer Chicago kids entering kindergarten and first grade were obese in 2008 vs. five years earlier. But children in Chicago are still more likely to be fatter than kids nationwide and, by sixth grade, more than one in four kids here is obese.
Those are the key findings of a new study by the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children that suggests that efforts to fight childhood obesity in Chicago might be starting to have an effect but also reflects how daunting the problem is.
Efforts here to attack early childhood obesity “seem to be making a difference,” said Adam Becker, executive director of the Chicago consortium, based at Children’s Memorial Hospital. “But we still have a lot of work to do.”
Fighting Child Obesity: States Lead The Way
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The March issue of Health Affairs is a thematic issue focusing on the child obesity epidemic and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Two days after the issue and an accompanying series of policy briefs was released at a March 2 Washington DC briefing, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held the first of a planned series of hearings on child obesity. Today, the Health Affairs Blog offers posts from Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), the ranking member of the HELP Committee (below) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), the chairman of the panel.
Our nation faces an epidemic of childhood obesity that threatens the lives, health, and financial independence of our children and grandchildren. As a result of growing rates of obesity, millions of American children and adolescents will develop heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other serious medical conditions. Obesity-related health care costs, particularly for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, will continue to increase—well beyond their already unsustainable levels.
To save lives, improve health, and prevent rising costs, we must work together—federal, state, and local governments; schools and teachers; parents and children—to fight childhood obesity. The problem we face is staggering. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the rate of childhood obesity has tripled in the last thirty years. Today, 20 percent of children struggle with obesity, and in thirty states, childhood obesity rates have topped 30 percent. For most of these children, their struggles with obesity will follow them into adulthood, as 80 percent of severely overweight teenagers remain obese into their late twenties and beyond.
Obesity Prevention is Focus of Global Nutrition Transition Conference
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Physicians and nutrition scientists from around the world gathered today in Orlando for the opening of the Global Nutrition Transition Conference in order to discuss emerging trends and grass roots solutions to the global obesity epidemic employing balanced nutrition and teaching healthy active lifestyles.
The conference is addressing what is termed the Nutrition Transition—the effect of the globalization of the Western diet which is changing dietary patterns and the incidence of overweight and obesity throughout the world. Conference presenters focused on the dramatic increases in the incidence of overweight and obesity in countries where, until recently, obesity was virtually unknown.
Today’s speakers included Dr. Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington, Seattle; Dr. Anoop Misra, director of the Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases department of the Fortis Group of Hospitals in New Delhi, India; Dr. Nataniel Viuniski of Unimed Hospital, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Dr. Linong Ji of Peking University in China; and Dr. Marion Flechtner-Mors of the University of Ulm, Germany.
Childhood Obesity Rates Driven by Snacking
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Childhood obesity rates have increased due to constant snacking by kids, according to a new study.
Today’s kids are a generation of snackers. But, the types of foods they’re choosing is driving childhood obesity rates sky high, according to a new study.
Snacking on junk food accounts for more than 27 percent of the daily calories children take in, an increase of 168 calories per day between 1977 and 2006, according to a new report in the journal Health Affairs.
Play a role in helping to end childhood obesity
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First Lady Michelle Obama recently launched a new campaign, Let’s Move, designed to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation.
“It’s an ambitious goal, but we don’t have time to wait,” said Mrs. Obama.
Combating childhood obesity will be quite an undertaking, considering that the number of obese children in the U.S. has quadrupled since 1960. Most obese adolescents become obese adults, setting the stage for dangerous health conditions, such as heart disease, stroke and some forms of cancer. Currently, some 32 percent of America’s children are overweight or obese.
Conquering obesity improves lives
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I’ve written many times that we are the fattest society the world has ever seen, and we are getting fatter year by year, and at a faster rate. We lead the world in obesity, but, unfortunately, many parts of the world seem determined to catch us.
The World Health Organization projects that from 2005 to 2015, the incidence of overweight adults worldwide will increase from 1.6 billion to 2.3 billion, and the incidence of obesity will increase from 300 million to 700 million. These trends, if ignored, foreshadow severe implications for the future, both human and economic.
The human cost in terms of compromised and ruined lives from chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes is obvious.
Obesity and Colon Cancer a Deadly Combination
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Obese patients with colon cancer may have a greater chance of dying from the disease compared to those at a normal weight.
Every year in the United States, roughly 150,000 people are diagnosed with colon cancer. A new study involved 4,381 patients with stage II or II colon cancer who were treated with chemotherapy, 20 percent of whom were obese.
“Obesity has long been established as a risk factor for cancer, but our study in colon cancer patients shows that obesity predicts a poorer prognosis after the cancer is surgically removed,” Frank A. Sinicrope, M.D., a professor of medicine and oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, N.Y., was quoted as saying.
Red Meat, Obesity Raise the Risk of Colon Cancer
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Two new research studies have added weight to the evidence that both the consumption of red meat and excess weight contribute to the increased risk of developing colon cancer.
A team from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Rockville MD reviewed data from a cohort of over 300,000 men and women and reviewed the detailed questionnaires by the participants about the types of meat that they consumed and how it was cooked. After seven years of follow-up, there were 2,710 cases of colon cancer in the group.
Those who ate the most red and processed meat showed a significantly higher risk of developing colorectal cancer than those in the bottom quintile who consumed the least amount of meat.
N.Y. health dept. slams sugary drinks
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New York’s commissioner of health criticized the beverage industry for “ceaseless marketing” in its campaign against a proposed tax on sugary drinks.
Speaking at a symposium on obesity in Albany, N.Y., Richard F. Daines said the tax, included in the executive budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, is a battle to reduce obesity. He detailed the efforts of the beverage industry to market cheap soda, especially in low-income and minority communities; manipulate pricing to promote greater consumption; rally opposition to government efforts to reduce consumption of sugary beverages and blame the rise in childhood obesity on parents, while denying any link between obesity and non-diet soda consumption.
Let’s Move! The Obama Campaign against Childhood Obesity
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Childhood overweight and obesity is a serious problem globally. One of the hardest hit countries is the United States, where half of children are overweight for their age. As such, First Lady Michelle Obama has launched an important program called Let’s Move to try to find ways to deal with the problem - and it deserves a lot of attention!
Let’s Move aims to help families manage and prevent childhood obesity from four vantage points:
* helping parents make healthy choices for their kids
* finding ways to make the school environment healthier
* increasing physical activity
* finding ways to access healthy and affordable food
