Posted by Erika Lee on Feb.16, 2010

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A large-scale survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control show nearly half of children and adolescents are above a healthy weight, either overweight or obese (30% or more above a healthy weight). The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and teens has tripled in the past 20 years.

A separate study recently published the medical journal Clinical Pediatrics showed that overweight and obese children began to develop weight problems while they were still babies. The study looked at records of children whose recorded weight during at least one pediatrician visit put them as clinically overweight or obese. The researchers looked back over the weight history of these children and discovered that, when the children who were overweight at the first pediatrician visit were included, half of the children had developed overweight by the time they were 15 months old.

When the researchers included only children who had at least one normal-weight pediatrician visit before developing overweight, half of the kids were overweight by 22 months. Pediatricians generally use a Body Mass Index scale to determine healthy weights, factoring in the child’s growth patterns to adjust for the needs of growing kids.

Taken together, these add up to a situation where more kids are developing excess weight problems, and they’re developing them early. Beyond the social problems that being overweight can cause among peers, excess weight is a major health threat, even at a very young age. Early overweight sets the stage for obesity-related conditions like cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes. Overweight teens overwhelmingly become overweight and obese adults, with the lifelong health problems (and higher health insurance premiums) that come with a weight outside the healthy range.

Weight management in children and adolescents is a different ballgame from weight management in overweight adults. Adults may joke that “I’m not overweight, I’m undertall,” but with kids, that may be the case, and the children may need to keep the weight on the scale constant while their height catches up. If weight loss is necessary, restrictive diets that cut nutrients along with calories have the potential to adversely affect growth and development. Children and teens are also forming their lifelong attitudes toward food at this stage, and ideas ingrained now may set them up for disordered eating later.

Raising healthy kids can be a daunting task, with all the conflicting nutritional advice and the need to balance physical activity with the demands of school and homework, but it’s one of the primary responsibilities of being a parent. We need to make sure our pediatricians are our partners in our children’s health. Make sure the pediatrician addresses growth and weight at each visit to catch developing problems while they are still easy to fix, because the health habits we build in our kids now go with them for life.

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Posted under Family, GDM Baby, GDM Kids, Tweens, Teens.