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Children who are overweight are more likely to be admitted to hospitals after they are seen in emergency rooms, according to new research presented at a meeting of the American College of Emergency Room Physicians.

• Dr. Adam Singer from State University of New York studied 6,304 children who had been seen in emergency rooms in 2007
• He determined that 12 percent of these children went on to be admitted to hospitals.
  
• Among this group, 17 percent were at risk of overweight, 18 percent were overweight, and 6.9 percent were underweight.

"We can speculate that obese children may be more likely to get sick, and when they are sick, they may be more likely to have severe illness," Dr. Singer said.

Labels: overweight children, hospitals

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The number of adults under age 30 in Great Britain who were admitted to hospitals because of obesity-related causes increased by 340 percent in the past five years. More than 800 children admitted to hospitals because of their weight since 2004.

"This absolutely horrendous rise shows what happens as yesterday's adolescents bring their bad habits -- junk food, lack of exercise, binge drinking -- into adulthood," said Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum.

Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat health spokesperson called the statistics "utterly shocking" and expressed concern about medical costs.

"The pattern among young people is particularly alarming," he said, "because of what it shows about the problems ahead, not just for the individuals involved, but for the National Health Service, which will be bankrupted because of obesity, unless there is drastic action."

The quotes and other information in this post originally appeared in an Aug. 22 article by Laura Donnelly of the British newspaper The Telegraph.

Labels: health problems, overweight children, hospitals

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According to a July 9 USA Today article, hospitalizations rates for overweight and obese children have dramatically increased in the first half of the current decade:

The number of hospitalizations of kids and teens, ages 2 to 19, with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity nearly doubled between 1999 and 2005, climbing from 21,743 to 42,429, according to a study published Thursday on the Health Affairs website.

These were stays for obesity-related conditions such as asthma, diabetes, gallbladder disease, pneumonia, skin infections, pregnancy complications, depression and other mental disorders.

USA Today also reported that hospitalization costs for overweight and obese children rose from about $126 million in 2001 to about $238 million four years later.

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Brenner Children's Hospital in North Carolina is opening the region's first program focused specifically on obese children. The program is called FIT (Families in Training) and will be led by Joseph Skelton, M.D., who comes from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

"The Brenner FIT program will provide comprehensive, holistic, family-centered medical treatment for morbidly obese patients in the region,' Skelton said. 'Our program is comprised of medical care, research, community education and outreach. Early next year, we hope to include a surgical component to Brenner FIT as well.'"

Skelton and his team are also part of the Collaborative to Strengthen Families and Neighborhoods, which was developed as a "learning lab" for developing possible solutions to child health issues.

Labels: education, hospitals, pediatricians

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When obese children are admitted to hospitals, most of the doctors do not record that they are overweight. Thus these children miss out on procedures such as screenings for cholesterol and diabetes, and education about nutrition and exercise.

• Dr. Anshu Gupta of the Virginia Commonwealth University, studied 80 children under age 18 who were admitted to a pediatric unit in a city hospital during a period of ten weeks.
• Although 30 of the children were obese and nine were overweight, doctors recorded such information about only four children.
• Only one child was referred to a clinic for obesity outpatient treatment.

Dr. Gupta notes that his study is problematical because obese children may be hospitalized at higher rates than children of normal weight.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.
 

Labels: health, hospitals, doctors

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