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Berks County, Pa., Children Don't Escape Obesity

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 18:00 CST

By Mike Urban, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Mar. 8--Could today's children be the first Americans to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents?

Yes, experts say, unless the nation's childhood obesity epidemic is curtailed.

Chubby children often become fat adults, whose obesity can lead to heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and many other problems, health officials said.

All of those ailments can shorten lives, so today's heavy children will face shortened life spans unless they change their habits, experts said.

"That's our fear," said Richard McGarvey, spokesman for the state Department of Health.

"I'm seeing children with problems that only existed in adults until a few years ago, such as Type II diabetes," said Dr. Mark Reuben of Reading Pediatrics in Wyomissing and chairman of Reading Hospital's department of pediatrics. "Uncontrolled diabetes will shorten the life of a 40-year-old, so you can imagine the complications if you get it at age 12."

"It's heartbreaking to think what's going to happen to these children," said Jill Zelinsky, assistant director of nutrition services at Reading Hospital. "It's urgent we get this turned around."

Dr. Louis Mancano has practiced for 22 years, but it wasn't until recently that he started seeing patients in their late 30s or early 40s suffering heart attacks. Most of those patients have been obese for years, he said.

"This isn't a future problem," said Mancano, associate director of family medicine at Reading Hospital. "It's a problem now."

Trends in childhood obesity are alarming health experts all over the world.

The number of overweight children worldwide will increase significantly by the end of the decade, and many of those youngsters will carry their obesity into adulthood, according to a report [published Monday in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity.

Nearly half the children in North and South America will be overweight by 2010, up from about 28 percent today, the report says.

That trend is evident in Berks County, Zelinsky said.

The hospital is treating an ever-growing number of children for obesity-related ailments -- including high cholesterol -- that were rarely seen in youngsters until recently, she said.

"It's a vicious cycle," Zelinsky said. "Children who are less physically fit don't participate in physical activity because it makes them hot and sweaty and makes it hard to breathe. Then they get heavier, and the cycle continues."

While it is too early for actuaries to predict how long today's overweight children will live, obesity is a major consideration in estimating the life expectancy of adults, State Farm Insurance Companies spokesman Fraser Engerman said.

That should prompt insurers to reimburse more parents for having nutritionists treat their children instead of waiting until complications arise, Mancano said.

While tobacco-control measures are helping to fight cancer, there is only so much lawmakers can do to reduce obesity, Reuben said.

"I don't think you can legislate away obesity," he said. "You can still get yourself fat on healthy food."

But Reuben likes that Pennsylvania school nurses must now determine the body mass index of kindergarten to fourthgrade students and report results to parents. That will expand up to eighth grade next year and 12th grade the following year.

"I have had parents come in who are shocked to find out their children are obese," Reuben said. "They simply have an unrealistic view of their children.

"I see children who are unbelievably fat, but when I tell their parents they look at me like I'm crazy. They are literally unaware their children are obese. But these BMI (body mass index) studies open up their eyes."

Mancano said the abundance of overweight children is becoming obvious.

He recently showed his school-age son and daughter his sixth-grade class photo, and they were taken aback by it.

"They said 'Wow, everyone was so skinny back then,' " he said. "Being slightly overweight is now the norm. We have to fix that."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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