Childhood Obesity: Destruction From Within

As I take a look around at the news and news documentaries on obesity, it seems that the most serious threats to the welfare and well-being of American youth may not be a terrorist attack, but rather the succumbing to the effects of astutely targeted food advertisement, fast food restaurants marketers, and the video game industry. How so? All of the aforementioned contribute to the ongoing epidemic of childhood obesity. Let's examine some of the facts related to the growing numbers of overweight and obese children.

For too long, Western society has used food as a reward and a behavior modifier. We have become a "super-sized" society that makes poor food choices that will eventually overburden the U.S. health care system along with shorter life spans.

What is the cause of childhood obesity?

This is a complex question consisting of the interactions between many factors such as environment, behavior and genes. With two-thirds, or 60 million American adults being overweight, children are bound to succumb to many of the same negative health and eating patterns. For example, adults who gaze mindlessly at the TV after dinner don't set too good an example of an active lifestyle for children to follow. Instead, they establish and instill negative eating and health patterns that may take years for youngsters to break free from.

Another looming issue is that children today have been zeroed in as pawns by money hungry marketers of fast food restaurants, video games manufacturers and the proverbial "boob tube." These practices entice children into overeating. A child-sized meal is often packed with 700 or more calories. Children are enticed to eat a nutritionally void meal as long as a high tech toy is in the box. The child has a double whammy as the normal youngster's eyes often lead him into trouble. Is it any wonder that 15 percent of American children are overweight?

Further, consider the fact that children forty or so years ago enjoyed wholesome outdoor activities which included: hopscotch, jump rope and "hide and seek." Today, due to safety and other fears, outdoor exercise is often shunned.

What are the health risks?

The health risks are many. With the figures reaching epidemic proportions for childhood obesity within the general population, Latino and African American male children are at even higher risk with the number ballooning up to 25% of such children, many of whom are in lower income brackets. This fact predisposed a child to pick less nutritious but cheaper snacks such as $.25 packs of cookies and candy.

Other ominous health risks include:

High cholesterol often requiring medication with the commonly prescribed statins. Sadly, long term effects with youngsters who could be condemned to lifelong usage are simply unknown.

But the following is a brief list of potentially life threatening chronic illnesses:

Cardiovascular diseases, such as high blood pressure and clogged arteries
Poor self image due to teasing and being ostracized
Sleep apnea and asthma
Reproductive problems

Unfortunately, researchers are now seeing how grave the future is unless some drastic changes are made.

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Scientists find "master switch" gene for obesity (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have found that a gene linked to diabetes and cholesterol is a "master switch" that controls other genes found in fat in the body, and say it should help in the search for treatments for obesity-related diseases.

In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, the British researchers said that since fat plays an important role in peoples' susceptibility to metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, the regulating gene could be target for drugs to treat such illnesses.

"This is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes," said Tim Spector of King's College London, who led the study.

More than half a billion people, or one in 10 adults worldwide, are obese and the numbers have doubled since the 1980s as the obesity epidemic has spilled over from wealthy into poorer nations.

In the United States, obesity-related diseases already account for nearly 10 percent of medical spending -- an estimated $147 billion a year.

Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, is also reaching epidemic levels worldwide as rates of obesity rise.

Scientists have already identified a gene called KLF14 as being linked to type 2 diabetes and cholesterol levels, but until now they did know what role it played.

Spector's team analyzed more than 20,000 genes in fat samples taken from under the skin of 800 British female twin volunteers. They found a link between the KLF14 gene and the levels of many other distant genes found in fat tissue, showing that KLF14 acts as a master switch to control these genes.

They then confirmed their findings in 600 fat samples from a separate group of people from Iceland.

In a report of their study, the researchers explained that other genes found to be controlled by KLF14 are linked to a range of metabolic traits, including body mass index, obesity, cholesterol, insulin and glucose levels.

"KLF14 seems to act as a master switch controlling processes that connect changes in the behavior of subcutaneous fat to disturbances in muscle and liver that contribute to diabetes and other conditions," said Mark McCarthy from Britain's Oxford University, who also worked on the study.

"We are working hard...to understand these processes and how we can use this information to improve treatment of these conditions."

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Sedentary Jobs Helping to Drive Obesity Epidemic (HealthDay)

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter by Amanda Gardner
healthday Reporter – Thu?May?26, 11:47?pm?ET

THURSDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- As Americans sit -- literally -- in more sedentary jobs, they're packing on the pounds, and it's this inertia that's a major contributor to the obesity epidemic, new research suggests.

Staring at the computer for hours rather than hoeing the fields means Americans are burning 120 to 140 fewer calories a day than they did 50 years ago.

So promoting any kind of physical activity needs to have an even greater emphasis in this war on weight, according to a study in the May 25 online edition of the journal PLoS ONE.

"It's all about calories in and calories out, and we're putting more calories in than we're taking out," said Dr. Robert Graham, a primary care physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

A tilt towards calories in has resulted in two-thirds of U.S. adults now being overweight or obese.

Although both eating habits and exercise have been studied in relation to the obesity epidemic, these researchers, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., said much of the blame for the extra poundage has been placed on calorie intake.

That's because the amount of leisure-time physical activity hasn't really changed over the years.

But what about the physical demands of work, where so many people spend most of their waking hours?

These researchers cross-referenced U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the prevalence of different jobs with a large national database that includes information on body weight.

Fifty years ago, about half of private-industry jobs in the United States involved some kind of physical activity, things such as farming, mining, construction and manufacturing. Today, that number is less than 20 percent, thanks to the dominance of jobs in retail, education and business.

The authors estimated that 100 fewer calories going out every day would result in a weight gain in line with what the U.S. population has seen since 1960.

Yet, if Americans were following federal guidelines for physical activity (150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of more vigorous activity), those extra calories would have been evened out.

Only one in four Americans is doing the recommended level of exercise, the authors stated.

"We need to encourage physical activity even more, especially given that we sit more during the day than we did 100 years ago," said Keri Gans, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and author of The Small Change Diet.

"The demands of everyday life are competing with exercise," Graham added. "We just have to make time for it."

Gans recommends that people move at work even if they have what amounts to a desk job. That could mean taking the stairs when you can, walking over to a co-worker's desk when you can and going for a walk at lunchtime. And if your company happens to have a gym or exercise program, by all means, partake.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on how to get moving.

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Prolonged bottle-feeding tied to kids' obesity (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Two-year-olds who are still using bottles are more likely to be obese by kindergarten, a new study finds.

Researchers who studied 6,750 U.S. children found that toddlers who were still drinking from bottles at age 2 were one-third more likely than other kids to be obese at the age of 5.

The researchers do not know whether long-term bottle-feeding is directly to blame.

But they say their findings raise the possibility that weaning babies from the bottle around their first birthday could help prevent excessive weight gain.

Pediatricians already advise parents to wean children from the bottle to toddler-friendly cups when they are about 12 to 14 months old, or even earlier.

That, however, is largely because prolonged bottle-feeding, especially overnight, is thought to boost the risk of cavities. It may also contribute to iron deficiency.

The current findings, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, may offer parents added incentive to follow those recommendations, according to lead researcher Rachel A. Gooze, a doctoral candidate in public health at Temple University in Philadelphia.2

And that incentive may be needed, she noted in an interview, since it seems that many 2-year-olds are still using bottles.

Of the children Gooze and her colleagues studied, 1 in 5 was still using a bottle at the age of 24 months -- either at night or all the time.

And of those long-term bottle users, roughly 1 in 5 was obese at the age of 5, versus about 1 in 6 children who'd been weaned earlier.

The researchers then looked at a number of factors that could affect a child's risk of obesity -- including the mother's weight, family income and education, and whether the child had ever been breastfed.

They found that prolonged bottle-feeding, itself, was linked to a 33 percent increase in children's risk of obesity.

The connection does not prove cause-and-effect, Gooze said.

But it's possible that for some kids, the bottle is providing unneeded calories.

"The bottle may be providing a source of comfort, rather than meeting nutritional needs," Gooze said.

And the extra calories could be substantial. As an example, Gooze noted that if an average-size 2-year-old girl drinks an 8-ounce bottle of whole milk at bedtime, that would meet 12 percent of her calorie needs for the day.

Prolonged bottle-feeding may also get in the way of toddlers having a varied, nutritious diet, according to Dr. Marc S. Jacobson, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Obesity Leadership Workgroup.

"Parents often say that it's hard to get kids to eat vegetables," Jacobson noted in an interview.

One way to help with that, he said, is to "start early" -- gradually introducing foods of different tastes, textures and colors into babies' and toddlers' diets.

In general, parents should start introducing solid foods at the age of 6 months. Before that, experts recommend exclusive breastfeeding -- a practice that has been linked to a lower risk of childhood obesity, Jacobson pointed out.

Like Gooze, Jacobson noted that the current study shows an association, and not necessarily cause-and-effect. But he said the findings do turn attention to the importance of early life in the risk of childhood obesity.

"A lot of the public discussion about the obesity epidemic has been about fast food, junk food and soda," Jacobson said. "But there are also infant feeding issues associated with obesity."

Weaning babies from the bottle to the cup can be hard, Gooze noted, particularly from the "ritual" of the bedtime bottle.

Jacobson said that if parents are having a tough time, they can talk with their pediatrician about ways to smooth the transition. "That's what the pediatrician is there for," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/mnCVrl Journal of Pediatrics, online May 5, 2011.2

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Brown Fat Cells May One Day Help Combat Obesity (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- The human body has two kinds of fat: the "bad" white kind that stores calories and the "good" brown kind that burns them. Now, researchers say that it is actually possible to make more brown fat to help people lose weight.

"We are now even more optimistic that brown fat could be used for treating obesity and diabetes," study lead author Dr. Aaron Cypess, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

In 2009, Cypess showed that although adults tend to have a lot more white fat than they do brown, most have some brown fat in an area extending from the front of their neck to their chest.

Now, in a follow-up study, scheduled for presentation Sunday at the Endocrine's Society's annual meeting in Boston, Cypess found more good brown fat cells also exist in deeper fat. In fact, some of them were actually mixed in with white fat cells.

"It's a marbling at the cellular level," Cypess said in the news release. "We wondered: Wouldn't it be nice if you could grow more brown fat? The answer is yes."

The researchers grew mature human brown fat cells from pre-adipocytes, or pre-fat cells, taken from a fresh sample of brown fat. Cypess noted that the process, which took about two weeks in a lab, would probably happen more quickly in the body.

By measuring the oxygen consumption rate of fat cells, the researchers also demonstrated that brown fat does in fact burn a significant number of calories. Although the study concluded that stimulating the growth of additional brown fat may be a promising treatment for obesity, the researchers stressed that making more good fat would not be a substitute for proper diet and exercise.

"As powerful as brown fat could be at burning calories, we can easily out-eat the benefit," Cypess warned.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the findings should be viewed as preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on the causes and consequences of obesity.

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Obesity Greater Risk for Fatty Liver Than Alcohol, Study Finds (HealthDay)

THURSDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Obesity and insulin resistance constitute a greater risk for fatty liver disease than moderate alcohol consumption, according to a new study that found drinking modest amounts of red wine posed no greater risk for developing the condition.

For their study, published online May 23 in Annals of Medicine, Swedish researchers instructed 44 people to either abstain from alcohol or drink one (women) or two (men) glasses of red wine a day for three months. At the beginning and end of the three months, the investigators collected blood samples and conducted MRIs to measure the fatty content of participants' livers.

"It turned out that the amount of fat in the liver was linked with obesity and insulin resistance and was almost not at all affected by the red wine. Specifically, after three months, none of the wine drinkers had developed fatty liver or elevated liver transaminases," Dr. Stergios Kechagias, a liver specialist at Linkoping University, said in a news release from the Swedish Research Council.

Moreover, the study found a 16 percent decrease in levels of harmful LDL cholesterol among those who drank the red wine. "There is a strong correlation between moderate intake of alcohol and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, and our data provides a mechanism for this since LDL cholesterol was lowered to such a large extent," Dr. Fredrik Nystrom, a professor at Linkoping, concluded in the news release.

Because it's known that large amounts of alcohol contribute to liver disease, it was long thought that even moderate consumption might have a harmful effect.

Fatty liver, which is associated with diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, the researchers noted.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more information on fatty liver disease.

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McDonald's stockholders reject obesity proposal (Reuters)

OAK BROOK, Illinois (Reuters) – McDonald's Corp spurned calls to assess the impact of its food on childhood obesity, and said its trademark clown Ronald McDonald would be hawking Happy Meals to kids for years to come.

"This is about choice and we believe in the democratic process," Chief Executive Jim Skinner told a packed room at its shareholders' meeting, to an enthusiastic wave of applause. "This is about the personal and individual right to choose."

Shareholders of the world's largest fast-food chain resoundingly rejected a proposal that would have required it to issue a report outlining its role in the childhood obesity epidemic, saying customers were free to make their own dietary choices.

"Ronald McDonald is an ambassador to McDonald's and he is an ambassador for good. Ronald McDonald is going nowhere," Skinner said firmly, prompting more cheers from shareholders.

Among the dissenters at the meeting was Dr. Donald Zeigler, director of Prevention and Health Lifestyles at the American Medical Association, who asked when the burger chain will stop marketing to children using Ronald McDonald.

Zeigler, who is also visiting assistant professor at Rush University Medical Center, was one of 550 healthcare professionals who had signed an open letter to McDonald's pleading that it "stop making the next generation sick."

On Tuesday, a watchdog group placed ads in newspapers across the country calling for McDonald's to stop marketing to children through the clown, toy giveaways and other tactics.

Some 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Being overweight during childhood raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension and a host of other diseases.

McDonald's has been a lightning rod for criticism for years over its marketing tactics and sales of Happy Meals for children that include toys as inducements.

McDonald's allows parents to swap milk or juice for soda in its Happy Meals. It also offers sliced apples with caramel sauce and chicken nuggets as alternatives to french fries and hamburgers.

The restaurant chain has added healthier options to its menu, including salads and oatmeal, but critics argue there is still too much fat, salt and sugar in its meals. Even the oatmeal, one critic noted, contains about as much sugar as a Snickers candy bar.

Skinner defended McDonald's strategy, which has resulted in hefty sales and earnings for shareholders. McDonald's shares have gained nearly 12 percent in the last four months and rallied to a record high of $82.63 on Thursday.

But as experts point out, obese children often grow into obese adults, overburdening the entire healthcare system.

Ironically, Miles White, chairman and chief executive of diversified healthcare company Abbott Laboratories, has been a director of the McDonald's board since 2009.

Abbott makes a broad range of drugs, including cholesterol-lowering statins, and medical devices, such as heart stents used on patients with clogged arteries.

(Reporting by Debra Sherman, Lisa Baertlein and Jessica Wohl; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Study Sees Link Between Psoriasis, Obesity in Kids (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- The prevalence of psoriasis -- a chronic, inflammatory disease of the skin -- is significantly higher among overweight and obese kids, researchers have found.

The Kaiser Permanente study, published online in the Journal of Pediatrics, also found that teens with psoriasis (regardless of their body weight) have higher cholesterol levels, putting them at greater risk for heart disease.

"This study suggests a link between obesity and psoriasis in children," the study's lead author Corinna Koebnick, research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California's Department of Research & Evaluation, said in a Kaiser Permanente news release.

"But our study findings also suggest that the higher heart disease risk for patients with psoriasis starts in childhood in the form of higher cholesterol levels. We may need to monitor youth with psoriasis more closely for cardiovascular risk factors, especially if they are obese," Koebnick added.

Using electronic health records to study 710,949 racially and ethnically diverse children, the investigators found obese children were almost 40 percent more likely to have psoriasis than normal weight children. At even greater risk, extremely obese children were nearly 80 percent more likely to have psoriasis than normal weight children. Moreover, it was four times more likely for psoriasis to be severe or more widespread in obese youth than in normal weight children.

The study also revealed that, compared with kids without psoriasis, teens with the skin condition had 4 to 16 percent higher cholesterol levels and liver enzymes, regardless of their weight.

Psoriasis, often viewed merely as a burdensome skin condition, may put children at risk for metabolic disease (such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease), as seen in adults, the study authors pointed out.

"It has been well described that adults with psoriasis have increased cardiovascular risk factors, but we have now examined these issues in children," the study's senior author, Dr. Jashin J. Wu, director of clinical research and the associate residency program, and director for the department of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, said in the news release.

"As we follow these patients over 30 to 40 years, we will be able to determine if these increased cardiovascular risk factors in turn increase the risk for major adverse cardiac events," said Wu.

The researchers acknowledged that the study had limitations due to its cross-sectional design, where both body weight and information on psoriasis were assessed at the same time, and stated that these issues would be addressed in future studies.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics provides details on childhood obesity.

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More Sleep May Cut Kids' Risk of Obesity (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Youngsters who do not get enough sleep on a regular basis are more likely to be overweight, a new study has found.

Conversely, when children got more shut-eye, they had a reduction in body mass index (BMI) and a significant drop in their risk of being overweight, the researchers found. The investigators also found lower BMIs resulted from differences in fat mass (not any effect on fat-free mass, such as muscle), indicating that poor sleep has negative effects on body composition.

In conducting the study, Rachael Taylor, a research associate professor in the department of human nutrition at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and colleagues followed 244 children from the age of 3 years to 7 years.

Every six months the children's weight, height, BMI and body composition were measured, and their sleep and dietary habits were recorded. The children also wore accelerometers (devices that monitor body movement) to assess their level of physical activity. Additional factors known to be associated with BMI in kids were also taken into account, such as the children's birth weight and their mother's level of education and income.

The study, published online May 26 in BMJ, revealed that the children got an average 11 hours of sleep per day. Those who consistently slept less, however, had an increased risk of having a higher BMI by the time they turned 7 years old. On the other hand, among 3- to 5-year-olds, each extra hour of sleep per night was linked to a reduction in BMI of 0.49 and a 61 percent drop in the risk of being overweight or obese by the age of 7.

Taylor and colleagues concluded that sleep plays a critical role in children's body composition. Prolonged lack of sleep, they found, may cause children to eat more and exercise less. Based on these findings, the study's authors suggested that good sleep habits should be encouraged in children as a matter of public health.

However, more research is needed to determine whether more sleep or better sleeping patterns contribute to healthier children, they noted in a journal news release.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on childhood obesity.

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