It took four decades. Between 1966 and 2004, the number of overweight American kids multiplied four times over. Along with that, our children and teens are suffering an alarming emergence in dyslipidemia (e.g., high cholesterol), high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal conditions, respiratory problems, psychological and emotional distress, cardiovascular disease and cancer risk.
Obesity Douses the American Dream: Today’s Children May Live Shorter Lives Than Their Parents
“The current obesity epidemic has produced a generation of children that may be the first to have a life expectancy shorter than their parents,” writes Bonnie Glance-Cleveland and colleagues in the January 2010 Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing.
One-stop interventions won’t cut it
We’ve heard it over and over. The battle of the bulge requires lifestyle changes that have yet to be cured by a piece of paper scribbled with a doctor’s prescription. The JSPN article examines preventive techniques, including the chronic care model for childhood obesity. After all, several aspects of a child or teen’s life are impacted by food, thus requiring addressing a tailored approach for helping overweight children adapt to healthier behaviors that could prolong their lives.
Realistic expectations take time
The following measures exemplify what can be incorporated into a tailored chronic care model, with the caveat that experts advise implementing measures over time, not all at once: limiting daily “screen time” (e.g., television, computers, video games, texting), keeping your child’s bedroom free of these electronic media, leaving the TV off during mealtimes and focus on face-to-face family interaction instead, limiting eating out to twice weekly, and eating meals with the family whenever possible. For some families, even this tailored framework is not realistic.
Bottom line
With recent findings that over 40% of adults will be overweight by 2050 (November 4, 2010, Harvard Gazette), and that the number of Americans with diabetes may triple by that same time, we can do the math. Today’s ten-year-olds will be 50 years old by 2050. Ironically, even though today’s middle-agers tout that “50 is the new 40,” in 2050, the new mantra may be reversed. That is, by 2050, “50 may be the new 75.”
Unless parents, schools, medical providers and the many other adults whom our impressionable children rely on to teach them good judgment and create a world where the American Dream doesn’t deteriorate into a life of early disability and premature death due to preventable obesity, “50 will be the new 75.” So far as I know, Botox may offer superficial rejuvenation, but it’s no match for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer; and, it’ll be useless if our children don’t live long enough to see their first wrinkles.
References
Bradt, S (November 4, 2010). “Obesity rate will reach at least 42%,” Harvard Science Gazette, http://news.harvard.edu/gazette…
Gance-Cleveland B, Gilbert LH, Kopanos T & Gilbert KC (2010). “Evaluation of Technology to Identify and Assess Overweight Children and Adolescents,” Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing, 15(1);72-83.
Join the Conversation