Teach Your Children

There's no getting around it, a major part of of the ongoing obesity epidemic is directly related to the frightening increase in childhood obesity that has risen up alongside the adult version. It’s an important matter, because childhood is the time when both unhealthy and healthy lifestyle habits are both formed. Indeed, our brain appears to be more malleable at that age and it may be easier to make big adjustments than later on in in life.

The reason we are talking about this today is because of a pair of studies that have popped up this week about kids and obesity. One noted an increase in the problem during the summer months, when many kids are out of school and have fewer restriction, and other noted that children of parents who are less knowledgeable about health were also less likely to engage their children in various types of weight loss efforts. Of course, as all adult dieters know, trying to lose weight and actually losing weight over the long term are two very different things, and many of us grown-ups also tend to eat more when idle and a bit bored. The bottom line is that it's clearly important to work on children's health habits, particularly if they appear to be obesity prone.

The fact of the matter is that bariatric surgery really does appear to be the best solution for most adults with severe obesity, since significant and permanent weight loss appears to be nearly impossible for most people of that age to achieve. At the same time, being able to prevent adult obesity by nipping it in the bud in childhood, when that might well be a vastly easier goal, is clearly the best solution of all.