Childhood Obesity (10) - Recommendations

As the President of Ontario Medical Association Dr. Greg Flynn puts it, “Our children are a precious resource – we must take action to ensure they can live long and healthy lives.” (OMA, 2005b). What can be done to fight the prevalence of childhood obesity epidemic? In a word: Education.

We have to start educating our children when they were young. We have to educate them in both being physically active and eating responsibly. In order to achieve them, both curricula as well as government legislations will have to be updated accordingly.

Reference
OMA (2005b). “Doctors Fear Ontario Children May Not Live as Long as their Parents”. Ontario Medical Association. http:www.oma.org/media/news/pr051005.asp

Childhood Obesity (4) - Costs of obesity

Obesity can lead to serious health problems. Among other medical problems, the more commonly known ones are cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea and other breathing problems. With more obese children turning into obese adults, they will more likely produce obese children. As a result of this vicious cycle, the economic burden on society increases at an alarming rate.

The Ontario Medical Association report pointed out that studies have shown that there is a 50% chance that the children will also be obese if only one parent is obese, and the chance increase to 80% when both parents are obese, and the report assessed that in 1997, Canada spent more than $1.8 billion on fighting obesity (OMA, 2005a).

This figure just shows the direct costs, which are inputs of resources to fight the direct medical consequences of the problem. However, this problem also carries indirect costs, which are negative outputs, or lack of outputs. As a result, levels of economic productivity are negatively impacted due to poorer health, absenteeism, disability and premature mortality (Starky, 2005).

Reference
OMA (2005a). An Ounce of Prevention or a Ton of Trouble: Is there an epidemic of obesity in children? Ontario Medical Association.
Starky, S. (2005). The Obesity Epidemic in Canada. Ottawa: Parliamentary Information and Research Services, Economics Division.

Childhood Obesity (1) - The issue

The World Health Organization estimated that in 2005 there were approximately 1.6 billion adults were overweight, and at least 400 million adults were obese (WHO, 2006). In 2004, figures from Statistics Canada showed that over 11 million Canadians were overweight or obese (StatCan, 2004). Canada is not alone in facing this problem. Similar trends occur worldwide just like an epidemic. The World Health Organization even coined the term “globesity” to refer to this escalating global epidemic of obesity (WHO, 1997).

This “globesity” apparently has spread from adults to children. The World Health Organization sees that childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. The problem is not just limited to developed, industrialized countries; it is steadily affecting many low- and middle-income countries. It has become a global issue (WHO, 2008a). In a report issued by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA, 2005a), obesity in Canadian children has increased significantly from 1981 to 1996. During this period, overweight boys increased almost two-fold from 15% to about 29%, while overweight girls increased from 15% to about 24%. In addition, obese Canadian children during the same period increased more than two-fold from 5% to more than 11%.

The figures obtained during this period were usually through self-reported numbers. Subjects of research might tend to over-report or under-report certain anthropometrics, thus making the results less objective. A study (Shields, 2006) is based on measured heights and weights of subjects, which makes the results of the survey more reliable. From this study, 26% of children of age 2 to 17 are overweight or obese, and 8% of children are obese.

These figures are alarming, and even more so, it is on a rising trend. One may ask: Who are affected by the issue? Who are the stakeholders?

References
WHO (1997). Obesity: Preventing and Managing the Global Epidemic. World Health Organization.
WHO (2006). “Obesity and overweight”. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/
WHO (2008a). “Childhood overweight and obesity” World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/en/.
OMA (2005a). An Ounce of Prevention or a Ton of Trouble: Is there an epidemic of obesity in children? Ontario Medical Association.
Shields, M. (2006). “Overweight and obesity among children and youth” Health Reports, 17(3):27-42, 2006.
StatCan (2004). Canadian Community Health Survey. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.