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Overweight Kids Doomed for Heart Disease
Posted on Nov 13th 2009 5:00PM by Deborah DunhamFiled Under: Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness
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Medical experts report that overweight kids are heart attacks just waiting to happen. One study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that today's kids are likely to become adults with heart disease, which translates to more hospitalizations, more medications, more medical procedures and a shorter life expectancy. Another study reported that if the number of overweight children continues to increase at the current rate, there will be 100,000 additional cases of heart disease by 2035.
Who are the main culprits for childhood obesity? Parents, for one. Carting in boxes of donuts to their little ones' soccer games, offering sugar-loaded fruit drinks as after-school snacks and replacing home cooking with deep-fried drive-thrus, parents are teaching kids some fattening life lessons. The average child today consumes 180 more calories a day than their leaner counterparts did in 1989. That can translate to an extra 18 pounds a year.
Caloric catastrophes are only part of the problem though. Thanks to the technology gurus and marketing powers-to-be that target our youth, kids today are more likely to be found tweeting, texting, Wii-ing and channel surfing than running, biking and playing. "Now you can drive through entire neighborhoods where you know there are a lot of young kids there and hardly see any of them out," said American Heart Association spokesman, Russell Pate in an interview with CNN.
So while kids are more likely to say that a blackberry is a phone vs. a fruit, we can still help them make heart-healthy choices. Once they learn to make them on their own, they may be more likely to turn off the TV and head outside.
Take a look at other ways kids can stay healthy.
