Sure, the kids are carrying a few extra pounds - OK, maybe more than a few - but how big a deal could that be?
       It could be today's greatest threat to public health.
       Obesity is poised to pass tobacco as America's leading preventable killer, and it's a growing epidemic among children. Hospital weight clinics are treating preteens and teens who weigh as much as 400 pounds. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of overweight children doubled among 6- to 11-year-olds and tripled among adolescents 12 to 19.
       One in seven kids - more than 9 million children - are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their younger siblings aren't far behind. Ten percent of 2- to 5-year-olds weigh too much.
       Excess childhood weight is placing "an unprecedented burden" on children's health, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. It's triggering a host of dangerous health problems once seen only in adults.
       About 10 years ago, for instance, doctors began noticing that overweight children were developing type 2 diabetes - once called adult-onset diabetes - at ages earlier than ever before. Those children also will develop diabetes' serious and even life-threatening complications at much earlier ages.
       Being overweight isn't a phase most kids outgrow, either. Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight adults.

Reversing the trend
"The good news is that there is still time to reverse this dangerous trend in our children's lives," says Dr. LeAnn Kridelbaugh, a physician nutrition specialist and medical director of the Dean Foods LEAN Families Program at Children's. "But to do that, we need to understand why so many children weigh too much."
       Genes play a role for some children, but that's not new. The world kids live in is new in many ways, though. Among the factors:

• More sedentary lifestyles focused on television and video games.
• Less physical education in schools.
• Eating more meals outside the home, especially fast food.
• Larger portion sizes.
• Too much fat and sugar.

   "More than 40 percent of a family's food budget is spent on food consumed outside of the home," Dr. Kridelbaugh says. "Soft drinks and 10 percent juice drinks account for more than 10 percent of adolescents' caloric intake. Meanwhile, less than a third of children who live within a mile of their schools walk there."
       The average child spends 5 ½ hours a day using TV, video games, computers and the Internet, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
       Sometimes, kids learn unhealthy behavior from us. Many overweight parents don't feel anything's wrong when their children become heavy. Other parents worry more about different things. In a recent Ohio survey, for instance, parents listed sexual activity, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking ahead of weight problems when asked about their top health-related concerns for their children. And still other parents don't know how to solve the problem.
       In Mississippi, the fattest state, doctors see fatalism among the young - the sense that, since kids' parents and grandparents are overweight and have chronic weight-related conditions, they're likewise cursed.
       "The key is to have a concerted effort to change not only the culture but the perception that obesity is an unstoppable disease. It is preventable. There are things you can do," Dr. Kridelbaugh says. "And it's a lot easier to do it when you're a child than someone much older. It's important to form good habits early."

Dean Foods LEAN Families Program
For more information on the Dean Foods LEAN Families Program at Children's, click here.