Lauren Veicht March 4, 2008 Eng 102 Mrs.

Bell Essay 3 Childhood Obesity: Not Growing as Rapidly as Depicted The inescapable fact is that obesity among children is a real problem. This quote was by Dr. Ian Campbell who works for the National Obesity Forum regarding the fact that childhood obesity is not growing as rapidly as most sources portray it to be. In the UK, children are slightly heavier now than they were eight years ago, but they are not classified as being obese. Children are not gaining weight as fast as doctors and dieticians say they are. The Social Issues Research Council, or the SIRC, said average child weights have only risen faintly. SIRC, which compared average weights in 1995 and 2003, said obesity levels have started to rise amongst older teenagers but the middle age people were most at risk. The survey showed that an average 15-year-old boy weighed 60.7kg in 2003, compared with just over 58.8kg in 1995. For a 15-year-old girl, the average 2003 weight was slightly under at 58.9kg compared with 58.5kg in 1995 (BBC). Children were also looked at in accordance to their overall height change in the past eight years. According to the SIRC, they said the international measure - which it said was better because it took into account the increase in children's average height since 1995 - showed rates had increased from 3.9% in 1995 to 6.75% in 2003 (BBC).

Professor Mike Kelly, from the Health Development Agency, said there has been a raise in childhood obesity rates over the last 20 to 25 years. "The real problem is not childhood obesity - we shouldn't get too hung up on that. The unfortunate thing is that patterns of eating, exercise and so on are set in childhood and that's why the emphasis has been on children" (BBC). A Department of Health spokeswoman said they used both the UK and international methods of figuring out obesity rates because it was understood there were alternative ways of measuring the scope of the problem. "What they both show is that there has been a rise." The point of the research was that the rise was not as out of the ordinary like most articles portray it to be. One major issue that is associated when children and adolescents find out or feel they are over weight can lead to serious psychological and physiological problems. Negative physical consequences of excessive dieting can include delayed linear growth. In a study evaluating children with short stature and/or delayed puberty, approximately 7% of the subjects fit a pattern of growth-failure due to malnutrition resulting from self-imposed calorie restriction, arising from a fear of obesity. Normal weight gain decreased in these adolescents at 12 years of age, followed by a decline in linear growth velocity. Puberty was also delayed in half of the subjects, and bone age was delayed 0.5 to 5.5 years (Southern). Children who diet too frequently or too excessively usually have problems with puberty, amongst other issues. This is especially bad, because now they went from being slightly overweight to having malnutrition issues so severe that even with their fast paced growth schedule they still cannot seem to grow. Adolescent weight-loss has been linked with an increased risk of long-term weight gain. A study of high school females found that those who restricted

their dietary intake, exercised for weight control, and labeled themselves as dieting were at increased risk for obesity later in life. Appetite-suppressant and laxative use, vomiting, and binge eating also predicted greater weight gain over the 3-year study period. After controlling for initial body mass, adolescents who reported dieting and other weight-loss efforts, either healthy or unhealthy, were more likely than those who did not report these efforts to gain weight (Southern). The reason these teenage girls will have problems with weight gain when they get older is because they are putting their bodies into starvation mode. This means that since they are not giving their bodies proper nutrients and are not meeting the daily calorie intake requirements their bodies think they are starving themselves. When these girls actually do begin to eat properly, their bodies will store all of their calories they intake because their body assumes this will happen again. This causes dramatic weight gain, along with difficulty trying to lose the weight. Dieting in obese adolescents is associated with decreased resting energy expenditure. A low-energy diet, comprised of calorie restriction only, causes a significant reduction in resting energy expenditure. The reduction in resting energy expenditure exceeded that accounted for by changes in lean body mass by 15% in one study. At a certain point in weight-loss efforts, obese patients have to either further decrease caloric intake or preferably increase physical activity to continue to lose weight (Southern). The high rate of failure to lose weight in obese children and adolescents may be caused by this decreased resting. Dieting can also have a significant impact on psycho logic health in adolescents, during a time of rapid physical, psycho logic, and social development. Several studies

have correlated adolescent problem behavior with dieting status. The most negative patterns of psychosocial and health behavior were found among frequent dieters and purgers, while the most positive patterns were found among the group of never-dieting nonpurgers (Southern).

Works Cited: BBC News. Feb 16, 2005. Child obesity fears over-hyped <http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4267949.stm> Southern Medical Journal. February 2002. Psychological and Physiological Effects of Dieting on Adolescents. <http://www. medscape.com/viewarticle/442892_4>