Making Childhood Obesity Our Business

05 May, 2012

by David Katz, MD, via The Huffington Post

There was an expression, once commonly used, to describe a situation in which it was easy to exploit people: “like taking candy from a baby.” As with all such similes, the illustration itself was meant to be the extreme, self-evident case. Stealing a baby’s candy is something so outrageously objectionable that all decent people must oppose it. It would concern anyone, and everyone. It would be everybody’s business.

We don’t hear that expression much any more for fairly obvious reasons. There is, if anything, far too much “candy”—and variations on the theme of candy, such as soda, sugary cereals, and so on—to go around; and too much of it in particular heads right into the mouths of our babes. The new-age problem is selling far too much candy to babies (well, children, really). That, too, is objectionable!

I believe we should regulate food marketing to children far more diligently than we do. You may believe I should mind my business. I agree with you!

There doesn’t seem to be much we can agree on these days across the spectrum of ideologies and politics. We are, at this juncture in our history, a very politically polarized society—where arguments for gun control confront arguments for “Stand Your Ground.” Food marketing to children is among the many issues caught in the vice of opposing convictions. There are those who believe this is a clear case for regulation, and others who feel that parental responsibility is the only counter-measure required.

But I trust we can agree, as a general principle, that decent adults look out for the wellbeing of children. “Loving Parents and Grandparents, Inc.” could be the most powerful special interest group of all time!

The well being of children is, to varying degrees, the business of every responsible adult. If you are a parent, it’s your business. If you are a grandparent, it’s your business.

If you are an aunt or uncle, it’s your business. If you are a teacher, it’s your business. If you know a kid, or have ever been one—it’s your business.

I simply contend it’s business we should be minding a whole lot better, and do so not on the basis of ideology—but of epidemiology.

The evidence that we have failed to mind this business adequately is overwhelming and incontrovertible, and all but common knowledge.

We have, of course, epidemic obesity among our children and adolescents. And this epidemic didn’t “happen” to our kids because of some extraterrestrial invasion we were powerless to withstand. We let it happen. We made it happen—by what we have chosen to condone and prioritize as a culture.

We have made the proliferation and sale of energy-dense, manufactured foods more of a priority than the health of our kids. We have made indulgence of “free” market forces more of a priority than the health of our kids.

And so, predictably, the health of our kids has gone where we sent it: to hell in our handbasket.

Epidemic childhood obesity is just the visible tip of an iceberg of present and pending peril. We have widespread Type 2 diabetes among our children; a generation ago, this was called “adult onset” diabetes. The proliferation of ever more cardiac risk factors in ever younger people is reported in the medical literature at regular intervals. There is actual coronary disease in adolescents. There is ever more bariatric surgery among teenagers. And we have evidence in the last year or so that the rate of stroke has risen 35 percent in children 5 to 14, with epidemic obesity the only smoking gun on the scene to account for it.

Compounding the physical toll of childhood obesity and its many metabolic consequences is the bullying it invites. Even in an age when fat is more common than thin, there is still a potent stigma attached to being the “fat kid.” Obese children are ostracized and persecuted—adding, quite literally, insult to injury. All too often, “comfort food” is the only reliable friend in such a toxic impasse—and of course, reliance on it only exacerbates all of the underlying problems.

Virtually all of this is preventable with a readily available expediency: better use of feet and forks. We don’t need new biomedical advances to eliminate most obesity and 80 percent of chronic disease; we simply need a societal commitment to use what we already know.

We are even beginning to get some hopeful evidence that when we do so, it works. The rate of childhood obesity has dipped slightly in recent years in both the New York City schools, and among young children in Massachusetts. In both cases, a dedicated effort underlies these modest but encouraging results.

Click here to read the rest of this article at HuffingtonPost.com.