Change Behavior To Prevent Obesity
Researchers
say the best way to prevent obesity in children is the one that makes the
most common sense: watch what they eat and how they act.
"The childhood
obesity epidemic can be primarily attributed to adverse environmental factors
for which straightforward, if politically difficult, solutions exist,"
the study authors said in the journal The Lancet. No amount of research
alone will solve the problem of obesity in children without comprehensive
measures to address the "toxic environment," said Dr. David Ludwig of the
Division of Endocrinology at Children's Hospital in Boston.
These measures
should target the many factors that "promote energy intake and limit energy
expenditure in children, undermining individual efforts to maintain a healthy
body weight," the study authors said fat children, historically thought
of as healthy, are now known to be at risk for many serious physiological
and psychological complications, researchers said.
People who are
obese are likely to die earlier than those who are not overweight, they
said.
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