better
health
Physical Activity, and Obesity.
“However, pediatricians are
not routinely calculating BMI
and sharing that information
with parents,” Dietz says. “Your
pediatrician should tell you
your child’s BMI. If the
pediatrician doesn’t, ask for it.”
A high BMI should also lead
to a fasting blood sugar test.
Diabetes may produce no
symptoms at first and can
go undiagnosed for years; this
test can pick up on it.
Along with diabetes, obese
children face other serious
health problems typically only
seen in adults. Obesity raises
blood pressure and cholesterol
levels, increasing the chance of
heart disease later in life
(sometimes not so much later
in life-doctors have reported
heart attacks in young adults
because of weight). Obese
children also may have difficulty
breathing and sleeping, joint
pain, headaches, and scarring of
the liver, says Gupta.
As if that weren’t bad
enough, the effects of childhood
obesity and diabetes can have
lifelong consequences. “No
matter how old you are,
diabetes cuts your life short,”
Deeb says.
SCALING BACK
The good news for many
overweight children who have
diabetes is that those damaging
lifelong health effects can be
counteracted with a healthy
diet and more exercise.
“When you lose weight,
you’ll improve your body’s
insulin sensitivity,” says Marilyn
Tanner-Blasiar, a pediatric
dietitian at Washington
University in St. Louis and a
spokesperson for the American
Dietetic Association. “If you
catch it early enough, you can
hopefully reverse the problem.”
continued on page 251
Some obese
children will
act out .in
school in
order to get
suspended,
just so they
won’t be
teased by
classmates.
How Sweet It Isn’t
Obesity, a major factor in the risk of type
2
diabetes, continues to increase among all ages of children,
according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey. Since the early
19 7 0
s, the steadily climbing obesity rates of those age
6
to
11
are a grim example of how kids are becoming plumper than ever. Today, about one in six in this
age group are obese—not just overweight.
I9 7 I-7 4
I9 7 6 -I9 8 O
I9 8 8 -I9 9 4
2OO3-2OO6
4
%
1
1
.
3
%
1
7
%
c art aw ay
diabetes
Your family’s eating
habits begin in the
grocery cart. The place
to start is with the food
label, says Marilyn
Tanner-Blasiar, a
pediatric dietitian at
Washington University
in St. Louis and a
spokesperson for the
American Dietetic
Association.
[^
FAT Go for foods
that contain
8
percent
or less total fat per
serving in the Daily
Value listing. The Daily
Value percent tells you
how that food helps
you meet daily
nutrition goals based
on a daily intake of
2,000
calories.
I^
FIBER Opt for
foods that are high in
fiber, which makes kids
feel fuller longer. A rule
of thumb for fiber
intake: Your kids need
their age plus five in
grams a day. For
example, a
10
-year-old
would need to eat
15
grams a day.
[^ WHOLE GRAINS
When shopping for
breads, cereal, and
pasta, be sure the first
or second ingredient
listed is “whole”
before the words
wheat, oats, or rye.
[^
SUGAR Find foods
that let you shoot for a
goal of
10
grams (or
less) of sugar per meal.
PHOTO: VEER
