Childhood Obesity

Nothing is sadder and increasingly more ubiquitous in our world than obese children. No matter how you look at it, they have a tough life ahead– even more so if they can’t lose all that fat.

Some sobering statistics about child obesity:

"We estimate that 22 million of the world's children under 5 are overweight or obese," said Mary Bellizzi, an expert with the International Obesity Task Force.

Research indicates that in some parts of Africa, fatness and obesity afflicts more children than malnutrition does - sometimes four times as many.

"In small studies in Africa you will find that 0.7 percent of the children are showing features of malnutrition, but over 3 percent are showing up overweight or obese," said Neville Rigby, public affairs director at the International Obesity Task Force.

In the United States, nearly 13 percent of children are obese.

The obesity task force estimates that in some countries, more than 30 percent of the children are obese.

From the CDC National Center for Health Statistics

From past articles, you should know all of the downsides to being an obese adult: low acceptance, poor life expectancy, greater risk of illness, less earning power and the list goes on.

But the obese child suffers from these and more. School aged children can be the cruelest creatures on earth and the obese child often becomes a running butt-of-all- jokes. This emotional strain can permanently damage his or her fragile self-esteem and make life a living hell.

Obese children have trouble socializing – much less integrating – into a group of peers. They can’t play sports, are ostracized at every turn and rarely get invited to parties. A date? Forget it.

These children are often blamed by their peers for being lazy and eating too much – “it’s your fault you’re so fat,” they say. But nothing could be further from the truth. The fault lies elsewhere.

It’s the parents that are to blame. Not a little, but 100%. Children don’t get obese via healthy diet and excise; they get it through dietary child abuse. That’s right, child abuse. If you fed your child barbiturates every day, what would happen to you? Off to jail, no doubt. But give them a diet of too many fatty foods and nothing happens. Why?

Because adults have yet to accept their obesity as something they did to themselves as opposed to “bad genetics.” Of the millions of obese persons in this world, maybe 1% can accurately make that claim. Many parents think that their children are fat because they are fat themselves – and it’s true, but not because “God made us this way.”

People are obese because of the poor choices they made just like alcoholics and drug addicts. Admittedly, they had help from their parents, the fast food industry and a poor understanding of dietary needs by health experts.

But that was 30 years ago – not a single person can say they “don’t know” eating a super sized French fries everyday will make you fat. There is absolutely no way they can’t know you need to get exercise. It’s simply not possible.

A television program aired recently showcasing the efforts of the World’s Fattest Man (560Kg) to lose weight. What was so striking is that he could not even move from his bed and had been unable to for some time. How can somebody who can’t even get off the bed get that fat? The answer? You got it: his doting mother. Yep – she prepared him food and served it to his bedside for years - as much as he wanted. You have to wonder if his mother wasn’t trying to fatten him up for something. This man was an adult, so he at least shares the blame, but come on.

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