Like many physicians who care for children and teens, I’m acutely aware of and concerned about the epidemic, the tsunami, of childhood overweight and obesity. Because of that, I headed a research project at Florida Hospital in Orlando, Florida, that resulted in the book SuperSized Kids: How to protect your child from the obesity threat. The book is currently on sale in HARDCOVER for $4.99 here (save $18) and in SOFTCOVER for $1.99 here (save $11).

If you have children or teens who are overweight, NOW is the time to make some changes. And, my book has an 8-week plan your family can put into action to start the New Year. The reason to do so is that to NOT act is to doom your kids to a shorter life with lower quality.
USA Today reports, “Heavy teenagers are often destined for skyrocketing weight gain in their 20s,” according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. After reviewing “national data on the height and weight records of almost 9,000 people ages 12 to 21 who were followed for 13 years,” researchers found that “about half of obese teenage girls and about a third of obese teen boys become severely obese by the time they are 30 — meaning they are 80 to 100 pounds over a healthy weight.”
“By the time they reach their late 20s to early 30s, people who were obese between 12 and 21 are more than seven times more likely than normal-weight or overweight peers to develop severe obesity — defined as having a body mass index, or BMI, of 40 or more,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “The result not only confers profound health risks for teens whose excess weight follows them and accelerates into adulthood, it also spells a looming public health disaster in a country where almost one in five adolescents is obese, experts say.”
The CNN “The Chart” blog reported, “The researchers also found that [among] teens who were overweight but not obese when the study started, more than 15 percent of the girls and six percent of the boys went on to become severely obese adults.” In particular, “overweight African-American girls were more likely than their white peers to bump up to the highest weight category.”
HealthDay reported, “Severe obesity … heightens the risk for a number of health complications, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, and arthritis. In addition, people who are severely obese can expect significant reductions in life expectancy, according to background information in the study.”
In light of the finding that “teens who were obese at the beginning of the study were 16 times more likely to become severely obese adults compared to normal-weight or overweight teens,” study author Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD, of the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, stated, “This is really setting these kids up to have significant health challenges later in life.”
According to a report from WebMD, “Gordon-Larsen tells parents of all children to ‘keep an eye on the weight gain.'”
Gordon-Larsen suggested that “parents have a goal of ‘keeping a healthy household.’ That means focusing on healthy food options and building physical activity into the day, encouraging kids to walk more and move more.”
Parents called upon to be role models in helping to fight childhood obesity. In a related article, USA Today reports that “obesity is proving to be a heavy burden for the nation’s kids and teens,” as evidenced by “a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that heavy teens often gain a lot more weight in their 20s,” many of whom go on to become “morbidly obese … by their early 30s.”
Dietitians point out that children watch what their parents each, and that “getting healthier should be a family affair.”
To that end, parents should consider having meals together as a family as often as possible, not keeping soda and an array of snacks at home, becoming more physically active as a family unit, and encouraging the kids to take part in planning healthy meals.
You can find hundreds of practical tips on helping your kids in my book, SuperSized Kids: How to protect your child from the obesity threat. It’s on sale, so get one today and make a life-long difference with your children and their health.