The response to warnings about the dangers and consequences of childhood obesity in the United States has been gratifying and positive. Even before Michelle Obama began her campaign to end childhood obesity, public health and school officials, parents and physicians had established programs that had generated a small but beneficial decline in childhood obesity rates. Some experts, however, suggest that the crusade to reduce the number of overweight children still is missing, in part, its mark. Those concerns have merit.
The issue is that current efforts to reduce childhood obesity start too late. The majority of current nutritional and educational programs target kids of kindergarten age and above. Mounting evidence, though, indicates that many children already are far down the road toward obesity by the time they start school. If that’s the case, the target audience of childhood anti-obesity programs should expand to include pregnant mothers, infants and toddlers.
Their inclusion would address pressing issues. While it’s generally known that about a third of K-12 students in the country are either overweight or obese, it’s still pretty much a secret that babies and toddlers are getting fatter, too. One in 10 kids under age 2 is now overweight, and the percentage of kids ages 2-5 who are classified as obese increased from 5 percent in 1980 to 12.4 percent in 2006. Clearly, the obesity problem starts before children reach school.
Traditionally, though, anti-obesity programs have not addressed the younger age group. The main reason, it seems, is that while it is relatively easy to reach parents and kids through the school system, it is much more difficult to establish contact with the far more diffuse younger age group and its parents. That lack of contact can be harmful.
Excess weight, physicians report, can cause serious health problems for toddlers and infants. One recent study, for example, found that obese children as young as 3 had warning signs of developing heart disease. That’s perturbing enough. More worrisome still is that overweight and obese youth become prime candidates for high blood pressure, cardiac disease, various types of cancer and other fatal and debilitating diseases as they reach adulthood. The cost of such illness is extraordinary.