HALIFAX (CP) - An increasing number of
children could die before their parents as a result of
health complications linked to an obesity epidemic
afflicting youngsters around the world, a pediatric
cardiologist warned Wednesday.
Brian McCrindle said a growing body of study
indicates that children are becoming fatter and more
sedentary at younger ages, leading to higher rates of
cardiovascular illness and other complications related to
expanding waist sizes.
"There are those who would predict that, in
this generation of children, the parents are going to be the
first to outlive this generation of kids if this trend isn't
reversed," McCrindle, an author and professor of pediatrics
at the University of Toronto, told doctors at the IWK Health
Centre in Halifax.
"This is indeed a worldwide epidemic that's
moving along at an unchecked speed."
Scientists have found in recent years that
children are setting themselves up for a lifetime of health
problems because of habits established at very young ages,
and even in utero.
American research is showing that children
who are over the healthy Body Mass Index, a measure of body
fat based on height and weight, had higher risks for a
series of cardiovascular diseases.
They also have been found to be at higher
risk of developing diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension,
orthopedic ailments, asthma and polycystic ovarian disease.
Obesity has been linked to a host of social
problems, such as bullying, depression, low self-esteem and
stigmatization.
McCrindle said recent research has also
indicated that overweight children have a greater chance of
becoming overweight, or even obese, adults.
The result, he cautions, is an already
stretched health-care system facing a new generation of
patients with serious, if not lethal, health problems.
"This epidemic of pediatric obesity may
become the most important and devastating public health
challenge of the 21st century," said McCrindle, a
cardiologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
It's estimated that 50 per cent of
in-patients in most U.S. hospitals now weigh 300-plus
pounds.
Health-care spending related to obesity
problems soared to $75 billion in 2003. Those illnesses
contributed to one-third of the 300,000 deaths a year in
that country.
Canada is in the top 25 per cent
internationally when it comes to obesity in children, but
McCrindle said it's quickly catching up to its southern
neighbour.
The steady rise in childhood obesity, which
is outpacing adult obesity, can be linked to lifestyle
changes that see kids sitting at computers rather than
playing outside, consuming larger portions of food, and
eating processed food high in trans fats and sugar.
Doctors, McCrindle said, have to urge
families to change their eating and activity habits to try
to prevent the onset of obesity since studies have found
that the problem is hard to reverse.
Some physicians in the audience suggested
doctors should be behind lobbying efforts to legislate the
amount of physical activity in schools and to ban
advertising aimed at young children that promotes unhealthy
body images and poor habits.
Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai, a cardiologist and
president of the Canadian Medical Association, recently
suggested that junk food should be taxed to combat the
obesity epidemic in Canada, which has the second-highest
rate of pre-school obesity in the world, after China.
Her recommendation goes beyond a resolution
passed at the association's last general meeting, which
called on governments to ban junk food sales at all Canadian
schools.
Many health organizations, including the
World Health Organization, have already called for a
so-called fat tax on junk foods.
Dr. Beth Cummings, a pediatric
endocrinologist at the IWK Health Centre, said that in the
early 1990s there were few cases of Type 2 diabetes in
people under age 19.
Now, she said, 14 per cent of new cases of
that type come from that age group.
"It's a huge problem," she said, referring
to obesity among children.
