To Your Health Kids at Risk

There is something wrong with our children. They weren’t like this 30 years ago. Today, one-third of our kids are officially overweight, and one out of five is seriously obese. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has tripled in the past 30 years.

But even more disturbing, children are developing adult forms of chronic diseases at alarmingly young ages. Studies are now showing that adult-onset diabetes, elevated cholesterol, and early heart disease are being found in high school, even in grade school, children.

An 8-year-old is treated for high cholesterol, a 10-year-old for high blood pressure, and a 7-year-old is found to have the adult version of diabetes — these are just a few examples. Epidemic obesity is the reason why a 17-year-old boy in Missouri had a triple heart-bypass operation. But how can this be? Are the children somehow changed?

No, our youngsters are genetically and metabolically the same as they were 30 or 100 years ago. It is we who have changed, and not for the better. More than ever before, there is easy access to cheap, oversweetened, and fatty foods, and a new degree of physical immobility never experienced before by our kids. It is taking a troubling toll.