Expert: Start Treating Obesity as a Disease

Experts offer fresh insights into the mounting worldwide obesity epidemic.

First, the argument that obesity is a disease and should be treated as such has received a major endorsement from one of the world’s leady obesity experts.

"Obesity is not an aesthetic problem. It is a very complex problem tightly connected to diabetes, atherosclerosis (blocked arteries) and other major health problems and causes of death," Professor Constantine Tsigos, chairman of the 14th European Congress on Obesity, told Reuters ahead of the meeting.
"It has to be treated and confronted seriously."

Statistics paint a disturbing picture of obesity's tightening grip on the world's population.

In European countries, for example, obesity rates have risen between 10 and 50 percent within the last decade. In the United States, the percentage of young people has tripled within the last quarter century.

Reaching young people will be a key factor in addressing obesity, Tsigos maintains.

Indeed, childhood obesity often is the beginning of a lifetime struggle that typically leads to metabolic syndrome, a health condition comprising an array of health risks, including a stereotypically large waistline, or beer belly, high blood pressure, raised insulin levels, and abnormally high cholesterol levels.

The other good news is a new study revealing that kids can be trained to eat better.

The study, which tracked 595 children, revealed that simple, child-friendly training aimed at instilling good nutritional habits prompted children from 8 to 10 years old to adopt healthier eating choices for three years. Even so, snacks, desserts and pizza still comprise an unhealthy share --- as much as a third --- of a youngster’s diet.

The study’s results drove home one important fact: Don’t deprive children of these less healthy foods; rather, teach them how to incorporate smaller portions of them into a healthier diet.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at June 1, 2005 04:10 PM | TrackBack