Childhood Obesity: A Family Affair | Your Health Journal

From The Dickerson Press?..

When a child has a weight problem, it can be a sensitive subject for medical professionals to broach with his or her parents.

After all, the kid isn?t the one shopping for groceries. And frequently, the parents or siblings are waging a similar battle with weight themselves.

?It can be a difficult conversation to have sometimes,? said Dr. Rebecca Bakke with Sanford Health. ?As a pediatrician, my job is to review a child?s growth and development with the parent. ? The best way I address it is to objectively look at the growth chart.?

Children aren?t diagnosed with obesity the same way adults are. While adults are classified overweight or obese by their BMI, or body mass index, pediatricians look at children?s percentile on a growth chart, or how their BMI compares to other children of their same age and gender.

A child between the 85th and 95th percentiles is considered overweight, and obese at the 95th percentile or above. A child wouldn?t be considered overweight or obese until at least age 2.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 17 percent of U.S. children and teens ages 2 to 19 are obese. The prevalence of youth obesity has tripled since 1980, the CDC said, and lower income and minority children are more likely to be obese.

While the method of diagnosis is different, children become overweight and obese the same way adults do: by consuming more calories than they burn.

?It?s a complicated problem when you look at solving it, but the causes aren?t complicated,? Bakke said.

Medical professionals note we live a more sedentary lifestyle. Kids aren?t outside playing as much. Our lives are busier, so many parents rely on higher-calorie fast food to feed their families.

Some parents recognize their child has a weight issue and are eager to talk about it, Bakke said. Some are defensive. Plenty have reactions somewhere in the middle, she said.

To defuse defensiveness, Bakke focuses on healthy lifestyle behaviors, which she does with all patients and their parents, an effort to proactively prevent obesity.

She refers to a number-based acronym: 5, 2, 1, 0. It stands for five fruits and vegetables a day, no more than two hours of screen time, one hour of physical activity, and zero sweetened or sugary drinks.

And a pilot program at Sanford Health aimed at helping overweight children involves the whole family.

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Source: http://www.lensaunders.com/wp/?p=7667

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