These days, being overweight is becoming increasingly common. In fact, some overweight people are classified as being in the “fat gap”. This means that they are clinically overweight, yet society fails to see it as thus and therefore the individual assumes that they don’t have a problem.

In the last 30 or so years, the number of children and teenagers becoming overweight has spiraled out of control. Some statistics peg the number at a threefold increase since 1980. Today, one out of 3 children between the ages of 2 and 19 either suffer from obesity or being overweight.

Suffering from obesity and being overweight can contribute to chronic illnesses and health problems. This is in addition to a host of psychological problems that can occur from being teased for their weight or being unable to keep up with their friends on the playground.

The burden of the overweight population and those suffering from obesity stretches to everyone one of us. Obesity is quickly catching up with smoking as the number one cause of preventable illnesses.

Obesity and being overweight means that there is an accumulation of excess fat on the body. Someone suffering from obesity has a BMI of over 30.

Controlling Obesity

1. The safest and most effective way to stop being overweight and controlling your obesity is to eat less and exercise more.

2. Hormones and drugs that increase the “resting metabolic rate” (RMR) have been successfully used to control obesity and overweight issues.

3. Weight-reducing drugs. One type decreases appetite and the other prevents dietary fats from being absorbed by the body. These drugs should only be taken with doctor’s advice, but they are also effective ways of controlling obesity and overweight issues.

4. Surgery. Surgical techniques can be used in cases of extreme obesity, also known as morbid obesity. The most common operation is having your stomach “banded” or stapled to reduce the amount of food you are able to intake.

5. Enzymes. Researchers at UC-Berkeley have zeroed in on an enzyme that plays a key role in regulating metabolism and weight in mice and say a drug that inhibits this target could do the same for people. Disabling the enzyme in mice resulted in their being able to remain lean and healthy despite being on a high-fat diet.

Childhood Obesity

When should you start becoming concerned about your child’s weight? Sure, all children gain weight and many grow into it well. But a few too many extra pounds, more than needed to support growth and development, can lead to childhood obesity.

Childhood obesity is clinically defined as when a child’s BMI exceeds 30. This is also the case for adult obesity. Childhood obesity is particularly troubling because diseases and illnesses associated with older people and adults, such as diabetes or high cholesterol, are becoming increasingly common in children.

The following are some jaw-dropping statistics compiled by the CDC on childhood obesity:

According to the CDC, 16 percent (or 9 million) of children ages 6-19 years old suffer from obesity, a statistic that has tripled since 1980. Another 15 percent were considered at risk of becoming overweight. That makes 18 million children in that age group suffering from obesity or at a high-risk for the condition.

In addition, the CDC also found that over the past three decades childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 and adolescents aged 12-19 and has more than tripled for children aged 6-11. Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming obese and overweight adults.

One of the best strategies for combating childhood obesity is to improve the diet and activity levels of your entire family. The following is a series of steps to take in helping you child overcome obesity.

1. Have your child examined by a family doctor or pediatrician to rule out any medical causes for obesity and determine if your child can safely participate in vigorous physical activities.

2. Sit down with your whole family and talk about ways to become healthier that year. Be sure you don’t single out your obese child, but strive to make everyone feel and look better. Remember this, if a parent or both suffers from obesity, your overweight child has a 80% chance of growing up into obesity.

3. Don’t make succumbing to childhood obesity any easier for your child. Go through the pantry and refrigerator and throw out all junk food. Potato chips, pre-sweetened cereals, candy, cookies, ice cream, and sodas (try seltzer water with a little bit of juice). Don’t ban your kid from ever eating them, but not having them in the house will simply make it inconvenient to indulge. Forbidding these items completely will just make them more desirable.

4. If your child or even your family is suffering from obesity, limit fast food and pizza delivery to once a week. Meals prepared at home are generally lower in fat and sugar than fast food meals. To make it easier to always have home-cooked meals, use a crock pot the night before to create some really amazing dishes that will be ready the next day or partially prepare meals and freeze them. Many of the chronic illnesses associated with obesity are linked to a poor diet.

5. Try to avoid having your child come home to an empty house every day after school. Try a Boys & Girls Club if babysitting is out of your budget or try asking a neighbor. Children suffering from childhood obesity are often teased and bullied at school, resulting in there coming home and eating comfort food to make themselves feel better.

6. Get the whole family involved, especially if you all suffer from obesity, in a weekly or daily physical activity. Skate, walk, run, or bike, it doesn’t matter as long as every one picks one and does it. Even if you live in a neighborhood that isn’t conducive to nighttime outings (read: dangerous), pop in an exercise DVD or take advantage of tons of free online resources regarding obesity treatment. However, always ask a doctor if you and your family is healthy enough to participate in strenuous exercises.

7. Don’t let childhood obesity get your kid down. Always remind them of how much you love them for reasons besides appearance. Give your child opportunities to develop skills and talents to increase his self-confidence. Don’t let childhood obesity cause depression or social anxiety. Always support them.

Obesity Statistics

A 2003 Food and Drug Administration hearing on obesity had the Center for Consumer Freedom discussing how the three most commonly used statistics associated with the overweight and obesity epidemic are all seriously flawed. The three statistics are: 1) Obesity causes 300,000 deaths a year; 2) 61 percent of Americans are overweight or suffering from obesity; and 3) the economic cost of obesity is $117 billion a year.

A New England Journal of Medicine article in 1998 found that “although some claim that every year 300,000 deaths in the United States are caused by obesity, that figure is by no means well established… [and] is derived from weak [and] incomplete data.” Likewise, the assertion that 61 percent of Americans are overweight or suffering from obesity completely ignores the 1998 redefinition that took the counter-intuitive step of judging men and women by the same standard, thereby creating 30 million new Americans became overweight over night, this included the very fit president at the time.

As for the $117 billion a year on overweight and obesity-related complications figure, it was often said to have come from the Surgeon General himself, but as CCF’s testimony revealed, it was actually an excerpt from a study published in the journal Obesity Research. It admitted that, “We are still uncertain about the actual amount of health utilization associated with overweight and obesity,” they also added, “Height and weight are not included in many of the primary data sources…”

To nail the coffin on this figure, the authors also admitted that their flawed methodology in calculating the cost of overweight would inflate the cost estimate, resulting in a double or triple counting of the costs of overweight and obesity. It assumed conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and a host of others were occurring independently when there is irrefutable evidence of the interdependence among these diseases.

It’s authors also incorrectly defined obesity, citing a BMI greater than or equal to 29, when the actual definition is greater than or equal to 30, thus incorrectly including an additional 10 million Americans to their obesity statistic.

The bottom line is being a few pounds overweight doesn’t mean you can’t be fit.

Consider the benefits of being overweight (and active), compared to normal-weight and inactive, as you get older:

1) One German study found that overall mortality is unchanged by overweight, but increased by 20% for obesity, and extreme obesity raises it by up to 200%. As people grow older, it becomes less of a factor.

2) The same study found that a larger BMI lowers the risk of bone and hip fracture.

3) A revised CDC report in 2005 found that contrary to the previous year’s report of 400,000 deaths associated with obesity, the actual number was at about 25,814 as a result of overweight and obesity.

4) Compared to a normal-weight couch potato, someone who is overweight and walks for 150 minutes a week has a 50% lower risk of death

5) A 12 year study of 11,000 Canadians found that people who were overweight lived the longest, especially if they were over the ago of 60.

When Frida Sepulveda was 8, she began developing dark folds of skin around her neck. It is a well known sign of type 2 diabetes. Her mother, Blanca Sepulveda, who has watched other family members struggle with diabetes and obesity, was devastated to see her daughter experiencing similar health problems.

Frida is now age 11, about 5 foot 6 inches tall and weighs a bulky 180 pounds. She is considered to be clinically overweight and is in the high-risk group for childhood obesity and adult obesity, especially because many of her relatives have also suffered from overweight and childhood obesity, and to be considered within a healthy BMI, she would need to grow at least  6 inches to have a borderline normal weight BMI.

According to the 2007 National Survey of Children’s health, 18.1 percent of Latino high school students were overweight and 16.6 percent were suffering from childhood obesity.

Aside from genetics, the problem with childhood obesity and overweight Latin-American children has a lot to do with their social and cultural boundaries and habits. Even Frida’s mother thinks that family and cultural standards are a major contributor to Frida’s, and many other Latin-American children’s', childhood obesity and overweight. “The way I was raised… you don’t [leave] the dinner table until you’re done with all your food. That’s instilled in you,” said Sepulveda.

Such behavior makes sense in countries such as Mexico, where many work for what would be weekly or daily wages for the month, and to be wasteful is looked down on. To create a parallel comparison, following the Great Depression, U.S. children were malnourished at record numbers which resulted in government subsidies for school lunches and a changed attitude in the dining room. Dr. Michael Goran, director of the USC’s Childhood Obesity Research Center, had this to say “You can’t just try to change someone’s behavior necessarily without trying to change their environment.”

Another factor is the immense amount of low-skill immigrants pouring over our borders as the result of an immigration system that stresses kinship ties over skills and education. As a result, according to studies by the Heritage Society, one-third of all immigrants live in families which the head of the household lacks a high schooled education; and first-generation immigrants, as is the case for Frida’s mother, and their families, who are one-sixth of the U.S. population, comprise one-fourth of all poor persons in the United States. In addition, first-generation Hispanic immigrants and their families now comprise 9 percent of the U.S. population, but account for 17 percent of all poor persons in the U.S.; and children in Hispanic immigrant families now comprise 11.7 percent of all children in the U.S., but account for 22 percent of all poor children.

What this translates to is a disproportionate number of Latin American children living in poor neighborhoods. In some of these areas, the nearest full-service supermarket may be a town over or even further. Cheap and easily available fast-food is appealing to parents who may be working late into the night and only aggravates the childhood obesity and overweight problem. In fact, research has shown that affluent neighborhoods have not only a higher availability of healthy food, but the cost of healthy food is also lower.

Another aggravating factor is the disadvantaged neighborhoods that many Hispanic children live in. Exercise is a tricky problem if it involves being beat up, robbed, raped, or worse. To that end, research indicates that Latinos living in tightly-knit communities, regardless of poverty, often get more exercise than those in more mixed neighborhoods.

The above factors are incredibly disadvantageous, and could alone be the explanation the overweight and childhood obesity disparity amongst Hispanic children. Exercise and lifestyle habits are the two largest contributors to childhood obesity and overweight and simply put Hispanic children are disproportionately denied the opportunity to practice either healthily.

How can we fix this problem?

Researchers and community advocates alike are attempting to combat the Latino childhood obesity and overweight problem. But the multitude of factors makes facing the issue like trying to hit a moving target and the results of interventions have been mixed.

Associations such as the Healthy Latino Families in Milwaukee has seen success in battling childhood obesity and overweight problems by improving diets and decreasing sedentary time through their programs; however, USC’s Goran, who worked with Latino teenagers over 16 weeks to improve their diet by promoting fiber-rich and low-sugar diets, found that at the end of four months, there were “no significant improvement in the outcomes.”