According to a Victoria's top childhood obesity experts, toddlers are becoming so obese they need hospital treatment and 10-year-olds so overweight they risk heart disease. This comes from Dr Matt Sabin, co-head of the Royal Children's Hospital weight management clinic who labeled Victoria's obesity epidemic as extreme. He said he often saw three-year-olds weighing 35kg - more than double their healthy weight - and 15-year-olds tipping the scales at up to 200kg.
Dr Sabin said, “We're not talking about a little bit of extra weight, we're talking about severely obese children… It is getting worse - the numbers are not getting higher but the degree of obesity is getting worse.”
His findings revealed that there are fast food families who feed their children take-away five nights a week. There are overweight children with type 2 diabetes from the age of 10, and even younger children already at risk of developing heart disease. These children also suffer from high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, and the early stages of liver disease and too many toddlers are drinking fizzy drinks and eating chips and sweets. Type 2 diabetes could lead to kidney failure, heart disease, blindness, and research had shown, within 15 years of diagnosis, one in 10 children would be dead.
Many of these severely obese teenagers as young as 15 are referred to another hospital for lap band surgery. The RCH's child obesity clinic is Australia's biggest, treating 200 new patients, and 1000 altogether, every year, but this was only the tip of the iceberg. While most were aged 14 to 18, a handful were as young as 10, Dr Sabin said. He added, “Five years ago, one child every three or four months was being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, now it's one every three or four weeks.”
Obesity also impacted on the children's emotional wellbeing, Dr Sabin said. “(It affects) everything from self-esteem, through to school bullying and school performance to mental health issues,” he said.
Parents must become aware of the results of this nutritional negligence to their children he warned. All the experts agree that parents have the major role to play in combating the obesity epidemic. Monash University nutrition and dietetics department head Professor Helen Truby has urged parents to encourage their children to be physically active, by engaging them in sport or an activity they enjoy. A healthy, balanced nutritional diet should be the right of every child. Professor Truby has another home truth that all could heed. Families should eat good food together. Those who have a sit-down evening meal tend not to have children who suffer from weight problems.
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