The Plethora of Dangers Involved in Childhood Obesity
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011Not so very long ago obesity and all of its accompanying complications were limited to the realm of adulthood. Over the last thirtyish years or so the situation in the US has changed definitely for the worse. In addition to having more adults than before, kids and teens are developing this condition at younger ages than ever before. For children, the obvious and most influential people will be the parents, and education as well as awareness are critical. But it is the parents who must provide guidance and also be a positive role model for their children. Obese kids are staring down the barrel of a plethora of physical and behavioral health problems. Beyond that, there are a lot of dangerous risks that will have both the means and the opportunity to develop into real problems later on in life. So for kids it is a terrible one-two punch that is nearly impossible to beat and overcome.
The child who is obese is on a crushing path heading right for awful health problems. One problem, for example, is fatty liver disease (which is just about the most common liver disease). Very many years ago people usually associated liver problems with alcoholism and sclerosis of the liver. Now, though, we understand that chronic obesity is a major factor in fatty liver disease. What will usually make the primary liver issues worse is that the metabolism of an obese person is terribly dysfunctional. Your liver helps things more by acting as the detoxifying agent to rid your body of anything that is not good for it. So there is just an incredible demand and load that is placed on the systems of kids and teens who are obese. Medical research has been done all over the world that says that obese children are more likely to suffer from sleep apnea. This specific condition is quite serious because what happens is that the child’s airway gets blocked when he or she is asleep. Kids who are overweight and obese are more likely to snore too but, according to researchers, that is actually deceiving. It’s also possible that the snoring is a symptom of something called OSA or obstructive sleep apnea. One possible approach that has been studied is using the procedure, adenotonsillectomy, to treat this condition in obese teens and younger children.
Scientists are trying to prove that, more so in girls than in boys, childhood obesity can play a role in early onset puberty. However, there’s a particular amount of common sense to be had in looking at what we know. For example, we already know that obese kids and teens see puberty set in earlier and grow faster than other kids. But it is a situation in which a clear determination of causality needs to be made. Obviously this is not a serious threat to a child’s health or super impacting of other obesity related problems but there are definitely some implications that will go along with the abnormally early onset of puberty. Obese kids and young adults have often been (accurately) described as “the walking wounded.” This applies because of the way that obesity affects the mind and the body.
