CHILDREN’S HEALTH: EFFECTS OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY

The disease consequences of pediatric obesity are vast. The overweight/ obese child/adolescent is at increased risk of disorders that require immediate pediatric assessment and intervention. Also, overweight/ obesity prematurely initiates multiple chronic health conditions in children/adolescents who are then more likely to manifest overt clinical symptoms as early as late adolescence and young adulthood. The assertion can be made that the disease consequences of childhood obesity are likely to result in an increased prevalence of disorders in the general population 55 years later.

Most childhood obesity is nor the result of new mutations in existing genes. Rather, changes in the lifestyle of our children are initiating the expression of metabolic disorders such as obesity.

Children are too young to decide whether to be physically inactive or not, and to fully appreciate or comprehend the devastating consequences of the multiple premature chronic health problems that could await them as adults, if they continue to remain physically inactive. For precisely this reason, it is a prime obligation of the healthcare profession to "immunize" children (much the same way we already routinely do for childhood infections) against physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyles, and the associated disease consequences.

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