Are kids really getting fatter? Get the FACTS here
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Although this is the world's first non-contagious pandemic (obesity/diabetes), the solution is already in the scientific literature. We begin with two simple statements: (1) many junk foods, especially fructose misuse, are indeed harmful; and (2) erroneous concepts obscure that, obscure even the very biological basis of obesity. One major conceptual barrier is the notion, “a calorie is a calorie.” There are many reasons calories are not all alike in weight control.
Overwhelming evidence shows poor-quality foods, including fructose misuse, produce health problems well beyond the effects of their calories, a powerful definition for junk food. By overwhelming taste buds (leading to behavioural changes) and by generating insulin resistance (biochemical changes), junk food contributes both to initiation of obesity and to its progression to grave medical problems.
Biology and biochemistry clarify by showing the fundamental importance of glucose throughout evolution, and showing how nature treats fructose as the “evil twin.” When its rate of ingestion exceeds that from chewing fruit, fructose misuse harms even adult human livers by depleting vital ATP there in a dose-dependent manner; thus the Glycaemic Index badly misleads when applied to fructose.
All this is especially hard on infants and toddlers.
Mother's milk, their natural food, provides no fructose, but we are flooding them with fructose (fruit juices etc.) in their postnatal brain-growth-spurt years, the greatest dietary evolutionary discordance of all.
And they are suffering: liver problems, mental disorders, and a head start on serious adult diseases. Growing children continually manufacture new cells, including brain cells. To minimize construction errors, all blood constituents should be near their proper values, but drinking fructose-producing sugarwater can raise the adult's blood fructose concentration a startling 250 times its resting value.
Powerful evidence shows we should, immediately, stop feeding junk foods, especially sugarwater (including 100% fruit juices), to our biochemically immature children; prevention begins here. Obesity/diabetes is a slow-developing, total-system disease. Correcting it in individuals requires a total-body approach to healing, proposed here. Preventing it in society requires de-glamorization of junk food and removal of fructose from the GRAS list.
Especially with infants, we are overlooking the obvious.
In the last three decades, the number of overweighed children has over passed imagination and childhood obesity research has gone beyond the surface causes, to discover that obesity can be genetically caused and it can even lead to cancer. All the researchers' efforts not only have improved the fight against obesity but have also raised new questions and facts that could influence even more the public opinion and determine people to pay more attention to this phenomenon. Studies suggest that childhood obesity can be genetically inherited. Researches have proved that the body-mass index (BMI) can be heritable in a percentage of 55 to 85 %. However, scientists do not completely agree yet on this matter and there hasn't been found any precise genetic cause.
However, the genetic lesions seem to be related to a hypothalamic dysfunction. On the other hand, the obesity had such a rapid and wide spread all over the world, regardless the ethnicity and the sex, that it's even harder to find a genetically-related cause. Research on childhood obesity will, eventually, relieve in the future the genetic connection between a child's preferences for sweet instead of salty or sour. Until then, the families with obese parents that have obese child will still produce polemics: is it a matter of genetics or just a matter of unhealthy eating habits and the lack of exercises?
Anyways, the obesity issue has become so serious in the last years, that global health authorities have claimed it an epidemic. Besides the questions related to the genetic predisposition to obesity, the specialists have also risen some questions concerning the liaison between childhood obesity and cancer. Research on childhood obesity has shown that obese children of both sexes have higher chances of developing cancer.
This hypothesis becomes more credible as various types of cancer are, just like obesity, more and more related to junk-food. Scientists believe that obese children risk to develop pancreatic, respiratory-tract, bladder or mouth cancers as they become adults is higher than for normal weight children.
These new results should really alarm people all over the world; obesity is a very serious problem itself but knowing that it could be genetically transmitted to the children and that it can lead to cancer makes it even scarier. The first ones to take a decision are parents. They should pay more attention to what their children eating behaviour is, to make sure that they don't have a sedentary life in front of the TV, computer or play-station. Parents should get more involved in ensuring a healthy diet, rich in vegetables, fruits, fibres, calcium and magnesium and help their children grow-up normally. If they feel that the situation is running out of control, they shouldn't feel ashamed to apply for a childhood obesity program.
Childhood obesity research has revealed enough ways to equal chances they deserve and it would be unfortunate if parents and adults wouldn't' take the chance of them in order to help their children.
Its not all doom and gloom. Childhood obesity if tackled early on, can easily be overturned with the right guidence, science and plan in place to reverse the epidimeic.
More and more cases now in relation to childhood obesity are being catered for by Exercise physiologists. Exercise physiologists specialise in the delivery of exercise and behaviour change for the prevention and management of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, depressions, cancer, and arthritis.
