You Don't Want This 'F' on Your Report Card

From Time.com -

"...[A]re parents really failing to notice their little angels piling on the pounds? Yes, says the U.K.'s Department of Health. 'Today, when more children are overweight compared with previous generations, it can be harder for parents to objectively identify if their child is overweight,' says a spokeswoman from the Department of Health. 'Research shows that most parents of overweight or obese children think that their child is a healthy weight. Some research showed that only 10% of parents with overweight or obese children described their child as overweight.'"

The article discusses the fact that parents of U.K. students will be notified by schools of their children's weight, whether it be normal, underweight, overweight, or worse. Some schools in the U.S. already note students' weights on report cards. The reason the 10% statistic is so alarming is that more than 3 times that amount are actually overweight or obese.

Fat on the Inside

I've been thinking a lot about this since attending a talk on childhood obesity at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and professor at Harvard Medical School, as well as the author of "Ending the Food Fight: Guide Your Child to a Healthy Weight in a Fast Food/Fake Food World", discussed the fact that doctors and scientists are now finding fat around internal organs, like the liver, and that this will be a serious health problem in the near future. It was the first I'd heard of it, but it wouldn't have been if I'd read an article that my brother sent me back in May (he sends me a lot of articles).

Futurist Ray Kurzweil publishes a newsletter that has all kinds of cutting edge information, and in his May 14th issue, he includes an article called "Thin People Can Be Fat on the Inside". This basically says it all -

"According to the data, people who maintain their weight through diet rather than exercise are likely to have major deposits of internal fat, even if they are otherwise slim. “The whole concept of being fat needs to be redefined,” said Bell, whose research is funded by Britain’s Medical Research Council."

I watched an episode of Penn & Teller's show on Showtime recently; one in which they sought to disprove the obesity epidemic. The argument they proposed did not convince me, and one of the main reasons for that was a physical fitness test they conducted in which the control was a very obviously out of shape guy, but one who happened to be thin(ish). He didn't win a single event. Wow, Penn, you're some sort of scientist. The obvious fact is that the guy didn't exercise, so someone who had a little more heft to him, but who was in better physical shape, beat him in various foot races and other events.

The point is that you need a proper diet and regular exercise to be healthy. We'll just keep beating that drum.

More on the Obesity Epidemic

This comes from an article in Employee Benefit News, that discusses a presentation made by cardiologist James Rippe -

"But since 'obesity is not a reimbursable diagnosis,' Rippe explains, it tends to be significantly under reported as a medical condition. Doctors aren't trained to tell patients that their disease is being fat, so they cite specific diseases that often result from excess weight, such as diabetes, heart disease and muscular-skeletal pain, Rippe explains. "

"In fact, obesity is listed only on 0.3% of claims submitted by physicians, but it causes 40% to 70% of hypertension cases, over 50% of blood lipid problems, over 80% of Type 2 diabetes and almost 100% of metabolic syndrome cases. Over the past decade, the prevalence of obesity has grown by more than 40%, according to Rippe."

Don't Take Two of These, Don't Call Me in the Morning

Head of the British Medical Association, Dr. Hamish Meldrum, has caused quite a stir across the pond. Maybe more interesting, however, than the information about the obesity debate that rages on in the UK and the good ol' US of A, is the fact that Hamish Meldrum is a Scottish name. That's incredible!

Anyway, the point is that Dr. Meldrum has come out in opposition to all of the over-medicalization (I guess that's a word in England. Whatever, they invented the language, even if they don't pronounce their r's.) of obesity treatment, and that prevention is clearly the ideal method of lessening that societal problem and the costs associated with it. Duh. We don't need MD's to figure that one out, do we?

Read the article here on "This is London".

I often find the readers' comments sections of online articles to be the most educational part of the experience. That is one of the many reasons that online media are more effective than print. You can't read a newspaper and instantly read how other people around the world are reacting to it. What an age in which we live...

Here is one such comment that I found to be especially poignant, especially given the European perspective it allows us to understand, and the struggle among proponents of healthcare reform, i.e. everyone -

"This is the problem with socialized medicine. Free individuals should have every right to make these "lifestyle choices" assuming any associated risks - including dying early or higher medical expenses. But when government provides healthcare for all, it is going to seek to constrain the rights of individuals in the name of the greater good."

- Jude, london, uk

The Greatest Country in the World?

Well, I still think we are, but we've got a hell of a lot wrong with us.

"British, U.S. Kids Worst Off in Industrialized World, UN Says"

This is really quite shocking:

"The United States was last among the 21 countries for health and safety, measured by rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, immunization, and deaths from accidents and injuries.

Britain was last in the family and peer relationships ranking, which measured such things as the rate of single-parent families and whether families ate the main meal of the day together more than once a week.

Britain also finished at the bottom in behaviours and risks, which considered factors such as the percentage of children who ate breakfast, consumed fruit regularly, were overweight, used drugs or alcohol or were sexually active.

The United States was second last in both the family and peer, and the behaviours and risks categories."

What good is all of this prosperity if people aren't safe, healthy and happy?

"Wake-up Call"

Read here in Forbes about a recently completed longitudinal study of weight problems in females that began when they were 9 or 10 and continued until the women were in their 30s. This is a rather bleak outlook, but it demonstrates how important it is to develop good diet and exercise habits early in life:

"'This shows that obesity and other risk factors for heart disease track from younger to older. This is a wake-up call for policymakers, for schools, for parents,' said Arlene Spark, associate professor of nutrition at Hunter College, in New York City. 'The success rate for treatment is practically zero. The only thing that we can really hope for is that we can prevent children from becoming overweight and obese.'"

"Girls who were overweight during childhood were 11 to 30 times more likely to be obese as young adults."

The Biggest Generation (Revisited)

There's a link on Drudge about the rising numbers of teens who are opting for bariatric surgery. It's rather startling to read one teenager's words:

"I have a little nephew, and that's my motivation right now. I want to be [here to] play with him as he gets older".

Read the New York Daily News article here.