Health Survey Points to a Looming Crisis

Previewing the findings of a survey into child obesity, Liane Colwell finds a grim outlook.

Dr Michael Booth MPH FACSM, from CRASH (Centre for Research into Adolescents' Health) and the University of Sydney 's School of Public Health, gave a talk on September 15 2005 on the "Epidemiology of overweight and risk factors for liver damage, heart disease and type 2 diabetes in NSW children and teenagers - Findings from the NSW Schools Physical Activity & Nutrition Survey 2004 (SPANS 2004)".

The presentation previewed some of the findings prior to the report's release. The report surveyed 5407 NSW students, ranging in age from K through Years 2-10, excluding remote, small and special schools. The researchers randomly selected one class in each school year and based sampling on overnight fasting blood serums. These were subjected to tests for HDL and LDL, triglyceride, C reactive protein and liver function tests; ALT and GGT. That between 20 and 25 per cent of children currently are overweight or obese is not a shock finding. But what is cause for alarm is that, based on studies from 1969,1985 and 1997,projections at current rates would see 50 per cent of children, at the very least, overweight by 2035.

Furthermore, even with immediate implementation of health strategies, Dr Booth stated that he would be very surprised if there were significant change within a generation, and that the NSW health system cannot cope now with the number of disease and pre-cursor conditions, as revealed by the biomarkers. Race and sex-based anomalies emerged, including an overrepresentation of children from Middle Eastern and Asian cultural backgrounds. Girls are showing startlingly different LDL and HDL fractions of their cholesterol levels. I sought  confirmation that this was a manifestation of slimming and diet culture in girls and Dr Booth confirmed it.

The clear finding is that "huge increases in chronic diseases and disability are occurring earlier in life." Dr Booth detailed the vicious cycle that is the overweight or obese child's life: excess weight leading to a further loss of self-esteem from social stigmatism, then further inactivity as orthopaedic problems such as skeletal malformations gain hold, along with gastric pathologies, respiratory problems and sleep apnoea.

Indifferent because you don't have kids? When you are, say, 50 to 70 years old you will be lining up with these kids for liver, kidney and heart transplants, and as the productive workforce continues shrinking, due to aging of the population, you will be  competing very hard in an already strained health care system for those organs available for transplant.

We have imported the American 'addiction' to animal protein, salt and sugar, and evolved a similarly sedentary and over-fed lifestyle, which is slowly but surely killing our kids via non-communicable chronic diseases.