Childhood Obesity:
Does It Have To Be A Death Sentence?

How prevalent is childhood obesity?

Most trusted surveys on the subject suggest that it is a major and growing threat to our nation’s public health. Check out these statistics from the CDC on childhood obesity.

According to recent American Heart Association studies, 9 million-plus kids in the United States (between 6 and 19 years old) can be considered either obese or overweight.

Among young kids--2 to 5 years old--14% are obese, according to data recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Kids who are overweight as teenagers have a 7 out of 10 chance of becoming obese or overweight as adults. Type 2 diabetes rates among kids also seem to be skyrocketing.

Health problems associated with childhood overweight and obesity include:

• high blood pressure
• atherosclerosis
• Type II diabetes
• damage to the kidney and/or liver
• “Syndrome X”
• depression
• tooth decay

What is the solution?

The American Heart Association as well as top-level physicians in the field recommend that parents do things like feed their kids foods lower in cholesterol, get them to exercise more, and restrict their intake of calories.

We are told that our kids are overweight because they play too many video games, eat too many snacks, spend too many hours on the internet, and ignore the advice of their pediatricians. This is the conventional wisdom.

Could something else be driving the obesity epidemic?

There might be. The alternative hypothesis about the obesity epidemic (Lipophilia) indicts dietary carbohydrates and sugars -- not behavior.