“Study: Obesity rising among preschoolers”

 

by Jamie Stengle

 

The obesity epidemic is reaching down to the sandbox: More than 10 percent of U.S. children age 2 to 5 are overweight, the American Heart Association reported Thursday.

 

The number is up from 7 percent in 1994, according to the organization’s annual statistical report on heart disease and stroke.

 

The 10 percent figure comes from 2002 – the most recent available data – and the situation is probably even worse now, said Dr. Robert Eckel, president-elect of the association and professor at the University of Colorado.

 

The prevalence of obesity among adults is well-known, with an increase of 75 percent since 1991. So is the problem with school-age children, reaffirmed by new statistics showing that nearly 4 million of those ages 6 to 11 and 5.3 million young people ages 12 to 19 were overweight or obese in 2002.

 

But the findings among preschoolers are a strong indication that weight problems are beginning even earlier.

 

“I think that what we’re seeing is that obesity is increasing across the board in adults, adolescents and children,” Dr. Christopher O’Donnell, chairman of the hear association’s statistics committee and associate director of the Framingham Heart Study, which has been following the health of generations of Massachusetts residents.

 

Experts blame the prevalence of junk food marketed to children, too much television viewing and the decline in the number of families who sit down together to eat.

 

Dr. Sarah Blumenschein, an assistant professor of pediatric cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, said doctors and parents need to watch the weight of even very young children.

 

“We have a lot of people that think that their kids look cute plump,” she said.

 

Dr. William Cochran, a pediatric gastroenterologist and nutritionist for the Geisinger Clinic in Danville, PA., said he sees many youngsters in his weight management clinic who weigh 300 to 400 pounds.

 

“Some kids are drinking a liter or two liters of soda a day,” Cochran said. “In 10 to 30 years, the incidence of heart disease and stroke and diabetes are just going to be astronomical.”

 

Chicago Tribune, December 31, 2004