When doctors talk about people who struggle with their weight, they use the terms "overweight" or "obese" or "severely obese" but that last term hadn't been associated with very young children until now.
Last week, the American Heart Association said it's time to start labeling kids who are at least twice as heavy as their peers as "severely obese." Morning Edition Host Rick Jackson and ideastream health reporter Sarah Jane Tribble talk about this new category and what it really means.
Q: So, what exactly is the heart association calling for and what difference does changing a label make in a situation like this?
A: Their statement calls for children who are as young as two years old to be classified as “severely obese.” When I called Aaron Kelly, the lead author for AHA’s statement and a researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School, he explained that the heart association hopes awareness of the issue will also encourage research into how to help these children.
"The risk factors for heart disease and diabetes and the other problems that they have are so much more serious than the kids who may be overweight or obese face that we need to help the pediatric medical community and the public at large understand just how serious of a disease this is,” Kelly said.
Q: Wait a minute. The CDC released a report in August celebrating that obesity rates in preschoolers were down nationwide.
A: That’s right. What’s bothersome to a lot of researchers is the fact that while the overall obese population in the U.S. seems to be leveling off, this subcategory of severely obese is growing - both in adults and now kids.
A senior economist at the RAND Corp. last year released a study on this and expressed concerns that the people who are severely obese have the highest health care costs and are the most taxing to our society because they often can’t work.
Kelly says the kids who are severely obese, sadly, have bodies that are too far gone. Like severely obese adults, those traditional lifestyle and eating changes generally don’t work.
The heart association is calling for more research into lifestyle modifications as well as the safety of drugs and bariatric surgery.