Helen Thompson - Weighted Down: When Being Overweight Makes You Sick

WEIGHTED DOWN

WHEN BEING OVERWEIGHT MAKES YOU SICK

OBESITY & KIDS

BIGGER ISNT ALWAYS BETTER: CHOOSING YOUR PORTIONS

COOKIES OR CARROTS? YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

WEIGHTED DOWN: WHEN BEING OVERWEIGHT MAKES YOU SICK

GETTING STRONGER, GETTING FIT: THE IMPORTANCE OF EXERCISE

THE TRUTH ABOUT DIETS: WHATS RIGHT FOR YOU?

TIRED OF BEING TEASED: OBESITY AND OTHERS

DOES TELEVISION MAKE YOU FAT? LIFESTYLE AND OBESITY

TOO MANY SUNDAY DINNERS: FAMILY AND DIET

I EAT WHEN IM SAD: FOOD AND FEELINGS

AT HOME IN YOUR BODY: CLOTHES AND CARE FOR THE SHAPE YOURE IN

WEIGHTED DOWN

WHEN BEING OVERWEIGHT MAKES YOU SICK

BY HELEN THOMPSON

Copyright 2011 by Mason Crest Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

MASON CREST PUBLISHERS INC.
370 Reed Road
Broomall, Pennsylvania 19008
(866)MCP-BOOK (toll free)
www.masoncrest.com

First Printing
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

to come

Design by Wendy Arakawa.
Produced by Harding House Publishing Service, Inc.
www.hardinghousepages.com
Cover design by Torque Advertising and Design.
Printed in USA by Bang Printing.

The creators of this book have made every effort to provide accurate information, but it should not be used as a substitute for the help and services of trained professionals.

CONTENTS

We as a society often reserve our harshest criticism for those conditions we understand the least. Such is the case for obesity. Obesity is a chronic and often-fatal disease that accounts for 400,000 deaths each year. It is second only to smoking as a cause of premature death in the United States. People suffering from obesity need understanding, support, and medical assistance. Yet what they often receive is scorn.

Today, children are the fastest growing segment of the obese population in the United States. This constitutes a public health crisis of enormous proportions. Living with childhood obesity affects self-esteem, which down the road can affect employment and attainment of higher education. But childhood obesity is much more than a social stigma. It has serious health consequences.

Childhood obesity increases the risk for poor health in adulthoodbut also even during childhood. Depression, diabetes, asthma, gallstones, orthopedic diseases, and other obesity-related conditions are all on the rise in children. Recent estimates suggest that 30 to 50 percent of children born in 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes mellitus, a leading cause of preventable blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, and amputations. Obesity is undoubtedly the most pressing nutritional disorder among young people today.

If we are to reverse obesitys current trend, there must be family, community, and national objectives promoting healthy eating and exercise. As a nation, we must demand broad-based public-health initiatives to limit TV watching, curtail junk food advertising toward children, and promote physical activity. More than rhetoric, these need to be our rallying cry. Anything short of this will eventually fail, and within our lifetime obesity will become the leading cause of death in the United States if not in the world. This series is an excellent first step in battling the obesity crisis by educating young children about the risks, the realities, and what they can do to build healthy lifestyles right now.

Did you know that people all over the globe are getting fatter? There are more than a billion adults around the world who are overweight . At least 300 million of them are obese .

But its not just grownups who are overweight and obese. More and more children are overweight too, even very young children. Around the world, at least 42 million children who are younger than five are overweight. In the United States, 15 percent of all children between the ages of six and eleven are overweight. That means that if you had 100 children in a room, chances are 15 of them would be overweight. And if you were to put 100 kids who were between the ages of twelve and nineteen all in one room, youd be likely to find that 18 of them (18 percent) would be overweight. Then, if you put 100 grownups together, 67 of them would be overweight or obese. Thats more than two-thirds of all grownups!

If youre overweight, youre not alonelots of kids around the world have this problem, as well as millions of adults.

WHAT CAUSES OBESITY?

Youve probably heard people talk about calories. Sometimes it may sound as though calories are bad things. After all, commercials are always making low-calorie foods sound as though theyre healthier, and people who are on a diet will often count calories. Its true that too many calories can make us fatbut we also need calories.

Calories are a way to measure whats in the food we eat. We use inches and feet (or centimeters and meters) to measure how long or tall something is; we use pints and quarts (or liters) to measure liquids like milk and sodaand we use calories to measure how much energy is in a certain food.

Each one of us needs a certain amount of calories every day to be healthy and have the energy we need for all the things we do in a day. Even sitting still takes a certain number of calories, but the more active we are, the more calories we need. People who are bigger, more active, or who are growing usually need more calories than smaller people, people who dont move around very much, and people who arent growing.