Medical community tackles childhood obesity issue

It’s well-established that there is a childhood obesity epidemic. What’s not well-established is how best to tackle it and prevent children from becoming overweight and obese, in part because there are many factors that play into this weighing issue.
While the medical community is addressing the issue and considering various ways to help children, obese pediatric patients often have diseases that wreak havoc on their bodies as well as rack up a financial burden on the health care industry.
Medical professionals are still looking for the best ways to counteract obesity while taking into account children’s nutritional needs fluctuate as they grow older. Most treatment programs are much like preventative programs, focusing on lifestyle factors like diet and activity.
Dr. Jill Radack, a pediatric endocrinologist at Cook Children’s, said the medical center has served an increasing number of children with obesity and weight-related comorbidities, like Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea and other medical issues. A small number of obese children may have underlying medical conditions causing them to weigh more, she said, but now medical professionals realize that pediatric patients aren’t just overweight — they’re overweight and unhealthy.
“I think the way that we look at it now is we’re just able to better recognize the fact that the children aren’t just fat,” she said. “They actually do carry medical problems with their obesity, and these are problems that we used to consider adult problems.”
A child’s body mass index, or ratio of weight to height, is used to calculate whether he or she is overweight, Radack said. Overweight is considered greater than the 85th percentile for BMIs, and obese is greater than the 95th percentile. Current data shows 21 percent to 24 percent of American children and adolescents are overweight, she said, and another 16 percent to 18 percent are obese.

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