Forty years ago, the percentage of kids between the ages of 6 and 11 that had been obese was around 4%.  Today, the number has far more that quadrupled.  A whopping 17% of the population of kids ages 6-11 are obese in today’s society, and that number is growing.  This is leaving a lot of parents desperate for solutions as they start to recognize that the negatives of having children that are overweight goes beyond the teasing that their kids could get on the bus to school.  Each year, much more and more studies are released that show obesity as a significant contributing factor to some horrible diseases. Some parents are even turning to surgical intervention for adolescents as this choice is beginning to open up for obese teenagers.  The difficulty … Read entire article »

It’s well accepted that reduced physical activity and fast food are linked to obesity. But the evidence that these are the principal causes of obesity is largely circumstantial. To stimulate debate, specialists suggest 10 other feasible causes of obesity, outlined in the International Journal of Obesity. 1. Sleep debt. Finding too little sleep can increase body weight. Today, a lot of get less shut-eye than ever. 2. Pollution. Hormones control body weight. And many of today’s pollutants affect our hormones. 3. Air conditioning. You have to burn calories if your environment is too hot or too cold for comfort. But much more people than ever live and work in temperature-controlled homes and offices. … Read entire article »

Obesity rates, which have already reached epidemic proportions in a lot of western countries, are continuing to rise and so it is not surprising that we are seeing an growing number of overweight young children. The dangers of childhood obesity right now are all too clear, but what leads to child obesity? As with many conditions there is no one trigger of child obesity and a number of distinct factors, generally working together, come into the equation when we are looking at obesity in children. Often a child with obese parents will also be obese and this indicates that there is a probable genetic or inherited link to obesity. This is 1 area that is presently becoming researched in a number of medical studies on child obesity. At present even so no … Read entire article »