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Kids
Risk Heart Disease As Teenagers
If Obesity Epidemic is Not Addressed
Today's children face
a future of heart disease, potentially as early as the end
of their teen years, if parents and policy-makers don't
urgently address the exploding problem of childhood obesity,
a U.S. obesity expert warned.
Dr. David Katz told delegates to the Canadian Cardiovascular
Congress the research advances of the past couple of decades,
which have improved the prognosis for people living with
heart disease, are in danger of being lost.
The threat is obesity and the fact that it triggers Type
2 diabetes. Both are risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
"Children growing up in the U.S. and soon Canada are
the first cohort in modern memory looking at a shorter life
expectancy than their parents because of epidemic obesity
and diabetes," said Katz, director of medical studies
in public health at Yale University's school of medicine.
He likened modern humans to polar bears in the desert,
incapable of adapting to the environment they find themselves
in.
The human body was built for a time when food was scarce
and securing enough to survive required extensive physical
activity. In the past century - and most particularly the
past couple of decades - humans have been virtually drowning
in calories while living an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
Tempting high-fat food is at every turn, Katz said, noting
the agricultural system in the United States produces the
equivalent of 3,800 calories a day for every adult and child
in that country - after exports.
"Our ancestors did not have will power that we lack.
They lacked the leaf blowers that we have," said Katz,
who was delivering the Heart and Stroke Foundation lecture
to the opening session of the congress.
He insisted experts know how people should eat, dismissing
fad diets that outlaw carbohydrates, for instance.
The challenge, Katz said, is figuring out how to persuade
people to eat a healthy, balanced diet in moderation and
to get adequate amounts of exercise.
Solutions have to involve the whole family, he said, suggesting
children should be taught more about healthy versus unhealthy
foods. And parents have to lead by example, forgoing the
search for a quick fix to their own weight problems in order
to teach their children how to eat right.
Lines like: "Finish your food. There are starving
children in China," have to be banished from modern
households, he said.
"It is time to put less food on the plates of our
children, and if they have the good sense to stop eating
when full, pat them on the back and say 'Well done' rather
than worrying about how making our kids fat could possibly
help starving kids someplace else in the world. And by the
way, those kids are getting fat, too."
He suggested parents make a conscientious effort to ensure
their homes are safe food zones, so that kids can learn
how to eat appropriately.
"If we get people to understand how critically important
it is to have a safe nutritional environment at home, to
safeguard the welfare of their children so that their children
are not sitting ducks, then they'll buy healthier products,"
said Katz, who said that kind of shift would prompt the
food industry to start producing more healthful products.
Parents should band together and demand that schools play
a part, outlawing the sale of junk foods.
"In a society where we have epidemic obesity and diabetes
in children, I see a vending machine filled with junk food
in a school every bit as unacceptable as a vending machine
filled with packets of cigarettes," he said flatly.
"If we can get all parents to see it that way, you
know what? We'll put a stop to it."
He suggested governments devise a simpler system of food
labelling to make it easier for adults and children to find
the foods they should be eating - and the ones they should
avoid. A simple system of colour-coded stickers - green,
yellow and red - could be used on all packaged foods, Katz
said.
Article Source: Canadian Press
Article Author: N/A
Net Reference 114
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