Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

Young adults who score low on physical fitness tests are two or three times more likely to develop diabetes two decades later.

Researchers with Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine reached this conclusion after analyzing data on almost 4,000 people ages 18 to 30 years old. The data had been collected during the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study. Study subjects who did poorly on treadmill tests were at higher likelihood of developing diabetes 20 years later.

"These young adults are setting the stage for chronic disease in middle age by not being physically fit and active," Professor Mercedes Carnethon, the report's lead author, wrote in the journal Diabetes Care. "People who have low fitness in their late teens and early twenties tend to stay the same later in life or even get worse. Not many climb out of that category."

Labels: diabetes, fitness, teenagers

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A national survey found that about 13 percent of American adults have diabetes, and 16 percent of teenagers have "pre-diabetes." The survey, which was conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also revealed that 40 percent of diabetes cases remain undiagnosed.

Pre-diabetes is a condition characterized by high blood sugar that is not quite in the diabetic range.

Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said that the new survey has "grave implications for our health care system. Of paramount importance is the need to curb the obesity epidemic, which is the main factor driving the rise of type 2 diabetes."

Labels: health, diabetes, teenagers

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An Australian study of 1,000 14-year-olds found that almost one in three is at risk for heart disease. Many of the children who had risk factors for heart disease were not overweight.

Researchers from the University of Western Australia and Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research set out to identify risk factors from measures of blood pressure, weight, and levels of insulin, blood glucose, and cholesterol.

The researchers plan to reassess the children when they are 18 years old.

This study appeared in the Diabetes Care Journal.

Labels: heart_disease, health_risks, teenagers

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A new study from the University of Missouri indicates that obese children as young as 13 years old are developing signs of heart disease not usually seen until age 45.

Dr. Geetha Raghuveer, a professor at Missouri's School of Medicine, used ultrasound techniques to detect changes in the neck arteries of 70 obese children and teenagers. She had to match the children's arteries to those of 45 year-olds to develop accurate comparisons. She said "vascular age" is very different from chronological age, and there was no way of knowing if the children's abnormal cholesterol would continue to build up or plateau.

This study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.

Children More Likely to Eat Whole Grains if Introduced Gradually

The key to making children and preteens eat whole grain bread may be to introduce it gradually, according to a new study from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Len Marquart and his colleagues studied the amounts of bread that students in grades kindergarten through sixth threw away over the course of a school year as they gradually added more whole grains to the breads. The students did not throw away significantly more bread once it reached 70 percent whole grain.

This study appears in the Journal of Child Nutrition and Management.

Labels: heart_disease, teenagers

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A study that was published in the July 16, 2008, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that though 90 percent of 9-year-olds get an average two hours of physical activity a day, less than 3 percent of 15-year-olds are that active. Researchers who participated in the study monitored the physical activity of 1,000 children from 2000 to 2006.

"The study suggests that fewer than a third of [15-year-olds] get even the minimum recommended by the government - an hour of moderate-to-vigorous exercise..."

Lead author Philip Nader says people don't recognize this for the crisis it is, citing the drop in activity as one of the primary contributors to childhood obesity. Source: Clarion Ledger (Mississippi)

Labels: exercise, activity, teenagers

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Nine year-old children are active for more than three hours a day - but by age fifteen, individual activity levels drop to less than 45 minutes per day, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers found that only a third of teenagers got the recommended minimum one hour a day of aerobic exercise, and that age 13 was the year that activity levels dropped off dramatically. Things got worse on weekends, too, when activity decreased from 49 minutes a day to 30.

The scientists speculated that older teens tend to watch television or play videos with friends, rather than pursuing active games.

"I was surprised by the degree of the drop. Its a dramatic shift," said Dr. James Griffin of the National Institutes Center for Research for Mothers and Children. "Younger children appear to be naturally active, but as kids get older, they find fewer opportunities to be active."

The study, led by Dr. Philip Nader, a professor of pediatrics at University of California, San Diego, tracked over 1,000 American children from 2000 to 2006, providing them with devices that recorded their movement.

Labels: exercise, activity, teenagers

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Anne M. Fletcher, M.S., R.D., author of Weight Loss Confidential worked with over 100 teenagers when she wrote Weight Loss Confidential. She "turned to schools, health clubs, weight programs, friends, relatives, and colleagues, all across the United States, even in other countries, to find formerly overweight teens who had lost weight in healthy ways." Once she found teens who lost weight, she had them answer an eight-page questionnaire to learn their weight loss story.

Read more about Weight Loss Confidential.

Labels: nutrition, teenagers, losing_weight

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Anne M. Fletcher, M.S., R.D., author of three best selling weight loss books for adults talks about her latest book just for teenagers and their families. Fletcher wrote the book in response to her overweight son's experience at summer camp. Anne says, "That's when it occurred to me that a great model for a book would be "teens helping other teens" with weight management. My son lost more than 60 pounds when he was 18 and, when he'd kept it off for a few years, I decided it was time to write the book."

Read a full review of Weight Loss Confidential.

Labels: parents, teenagers, summer_camp

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Teenage boys who get insufficient sleep are at risk of becoming overweight or obese, according to a new study from Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute.

• Dr. Leslie Lytle studied 723 teenagers in terms of their sleep habits, heights and weights, risk for depression, physical activity levels, and socio-economic backgrounds.
• Boys who got fewer than eight and a half to nine hours of sleep were at higher risk for overweight and obesity, but there was little association between weight and sleep for girls.

"Maybe girls are better equipped to deal with environmental stress," said Dr. Lytle. "They just biologically respond differently."

This study was presented at a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
 

Labels: sleep, boys, teenagers

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Reducing teen obesity is a worthy effort -- but a majority of doctors believe that stomach surgery for overweight teens is not a good idea, according to a new study published in the journal Obesity Surgery.

Researchers from the University of Michigan used a random sample of pediatricians and family physicians, asking them their opinion of bariatric surgery for adolescents. Half said they would not consider recommending it.

"Physicians worry whether the risks outweigh the benefits," said Susan Woolford, lead author. "How long adolescents will be able to sustain the weight loss and what the psychological outcomes would be in their futures are questions that are still being explored."
 

Labels: overweight, teenagers, surgeries

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Boys (especially teen boys) eat more than girls -- much more, according to new research from the US U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

"Boys really can eat," Dr. Jack Yanovski said.

• Dr. Yanovski and his colleagues kept track of the amounts of food that 204 children ages eight to 17 years old consumed during lunch buffets.
• Boys ages eight to ten years old took in 1300 calories compared to 900 for girls the same age.
• By ages 14 to 17, boys consumed almost 2000 calories at lunch.
• Girls peaked at 1300 calories at ages ten to 13 years old.

Dr. Yanovski said parents should not worry about the amounts their teenage boy eats unless their child is overweight.
 

Labels: nutrition, boys, teenagers

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

The continued growth of American teenage waistlines has both parents and professionals willing to consider every possible option for healthy teen weight loss. One option that has been successful with adults, but isn’t yet approved for teens, is gastric band surgery. But some worry that the risks are greater than the benefits.

The company [Allergan] has an application in with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking approval to market the device to teens as young as 14. A decision could come any time. Winning regulatory approval for the gastric band in teenagers would allow companies that make the devices – Allergan, Johnson & Johnson and others – to target that specific age group.

Today, regulators consider performing the procedure on the teens ‘experimental’ [Source: Reuters]

Teens can still undergo gastric band surgery, with written consent from a doctor, but if the FDA approves Allergan’s request, the surgery will be available to teens with or without physician approval.

Labels: gastric band, teenagers, surgeries

Posted By: Stefanie Hamilton 1 Comment

If a person is overweight in high school, he or she is more likely to be unemployed or on welfare during his 20s and 30s. Overweight teens are also more likely to suffer from chronic health problems such as diabetes or high blood pressure by age 40, when compared to people who gained weight as an adult, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.

• Lead author Professor Philippa Clarke of the Institute for Social Research studied 5,000 high school graduates who had been tracked for 20 years.
• Her new study compared those who were at a healthy weight when they graduated from high school, but gained weight over time to those who were heavy as teenagers.
• Dr. Clarke took into consideration factors such as lower socioeconomic status as a teenager, and still found that being overweight contributes to economic problems as an adult.
• Overweight teens who got good grades in high school were able to do better economically as adults.

The study appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
 

Labels: health, teenagers, economics

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment

An Aug. 17 editorial on the website of Springfield, Illinois, newspaper The State Journal-Register praised overweight teenager Scott Basso for his participation in the Wellspring Academies weight loss program and the Style Network show Too Fat for 15: Fighting Back:

A report last year by Trust for America’s Health ranked Illinois 10th in the nation in childhood obesity, with 34.9 percent of children here classified as obese.

Those statistics may frame the problem, but they only tell the numerical side of the story. The real story of the problems obesity can cause can come only from going through the struggle yourself or watching someone close to you fight that battle.

That’s why we give a lot of credit to 14-year-old Scott Basso. The Athens High School freshman-to-be has struggled mightily with his weight for much of his life.  ...

It takes courage to share a struggle as personal and emotional as this even with close relatives and friends. For a teenager to share it with a television audience is especially courageous.

Labels: weight loss, teenagers, wellspring

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