Obese Children At Greater Risk for Future Heart Disease

By as early as 7 years of age, being obese may raise a child’s risk of future heart disease and stroke, even in the absence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
“This new study demonstrates that the unhealthy consequences of excess body fat start very early,” said Nelly Mauras, MD, of Nemours Children’s Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida and senior author of the study. “Our study shows that obesity alone is linked to certain abnormalities in the blood that can predispose individuals to developing cardiovascular disease early in adulthood.
These findings suggest that we need more aggressive interventions for weight control in obese children, even those who do not have the co-morbidities of the metabolic syndrome.”
To be eligible to participate in the study, the children and adolescents had to have normal fasting blood sugar levels, normal blood pressure and normal cholesterol and triglycerides. Lean controls also could not have a close relative with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or obesity. THE LATTER GROUP PROVED VERY DIFFICULT TO FIND.
All study participants underwent blood testing for known markers for predicting the development of cardiovascular disease. These included elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation, and abnormally high fibrinogen, a clotting factor, among others. Obese children had a 10 fold higher CRP and significantly higher fibrinogen concentrations, compared with age- and sex-matched lean children, the authors reported. These abnormalities occurred in obese children as young as age 7, long before the onset of puberty.
The number of overweight children in the U.S. has tripled in the last 30 years, and more than 17% of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight, according to the authors.
“Weight reduction (or weight maintenance in many growing children) remains the cornerstone of any intervention in childhood obesity,” they wrote.
(Sources: Science Daily and MedPage …The article will appear in the March 2010 issue of JCEM.)
David says: Parents! PAY THE HELL ATTENTION! Monkey see, monkey do! Not Monkey hear monkey do. Kids do what they see – what they see YOU doing – not what they hear you yapping they SHOULD do.
Should interventions involving childhood obesity be parent-centered or child-centered? I believe parent-centered is the best approach. There is research to support my beliefs. There is research that says a combination of parent- and child-focused is the right model.
Childhood obesity starts in the home and my philosophy has always been that until a child can drive WE the parents are entirely responsible for our child’s weight and food consumption.
Let me say it straight. This is MY opinion. It’s not a show of love to overfeed your child junk while creating an obese child. It’s abuse or, at a minimum, neglect.
It takes a lot of work as a parent to feed and nurture our kids in health. The world is rough to grow up in. The marketing and overall obesogenic drive for sugar, salt, fat and calorie-dense foods are understandably forces that require massive efforts to manage as a parent. Ya, I get it. I’m a parent too. And here’s what I have to say to all that. TOUGH CRAP! Do the right thing for yourself and also for your kids. Live a healthy lifestyle and give your kids more opportunities in every way by doing so.
It’s not too late to make it better for your kids. No matter what their age. You influence your kids. You stand a better shot perhaps when they are littlest but my 20 year old still pays attention to what Tracy and I do — not what we say HE should do. We influence our kids in some ways forever. Whether you are normal-weight, over-weight or obese if you eat like crap clean up your act NOW and give your kids a gift that is positively beyond measure.
In health,
David Greenwalt
Leanness Lifestyle – Founder