PARENTS ARE DIGGING THEIR KIDS' GRAVES WITH A KNIFE AND FORK

By JOANNE RICHARD
SPECIAL TO THE TORONTO SUN ... Sept. 2005

According to a leading Canadian obesity expert, we're super-sizing our children and giving them super-sized health problems that will eventually erode their quality and quantity of life.

"It's grim. The rates of obesity in children in Ontario have tripled in the last 15 years" -- and there's no end in sight, says Dr. David Macklin, who practices in downtown Toronto. Our kids are getting fatter: "Kids are just eating too many calories," says Macklin. "We live in an environment that generates obesity."

And, according to Dr. Walt Larimore, an award-winning family medicine educator from Florida, "unfortunately, many parents are blind to the coming storm." He says the childhood obesity plague is rapidly worsening and leading to chilling consequences: "The bottom line is that there is a new epidemic killing our kids."

By feeding them over-sized portions, empty calories, fast foods, sugary drinks and letting them languish in front of the TV and computer screen, we are burying our children's health and future, agree the experts.

"For the most part, this is not due to genetics, but to bad habits and poor lifestyle decisions that parents teach. In other words, overweight couch potatoes are, with rare exceptions, raised, not born," says Larimore.

"In fact, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), if the current trend is not reversed -- and we have no indication that it is losing steam -- obesity will soon become the No. 1 cause of preventable death."

Larimore has co-authored SuperSized Kids: How to Rescue Your Child From the Obesity Threat (Center Street) in order to help quash the obesity tsunami and avert a looming health care disaster.

Dr. Sender Deutsch, of Toronto, has seen kids growing bigger throughout his 10 years in the health and fitness industry: "It's crazy -- they're definitely getting larger. It's poor nutrition and lack of exercise -- and it's up to the parents to help." 'PLUMP TODDLER'
Mom Josie R. has a weight problem -- and so does her son: "We all thought it was cute when our son, Michael, was out grocery shopping with me and would glue himself to the butcher's glass case, hollering 'Mom! Veal chops!' " says the Oakville mom, whose son was 18 months old at the time. "We just thought he was a healthy eater. He became a plump toddler, but nothing we thought we couldn't handle."

Now Josie's son is 12 and struggling with a 30-pound weight problem. "He looks older than his age and he's very shy," she says. "He's nervous about going back to school -- the other kids called him fatso up to the last day of school."

Josie resolved to get him healthier, so they've spent the summer eating better and getting more exercise -- "the whole family has benefitted. But it's tough for him -- kids are bombarded with high-calorie foods. They can't escape it."

According to Macklin and Larimore, many overweight kids do not tend to lose their unhealthy pounds, but rather carry them right into adulthood. "The kids who weigh the most almost invariably have obese parents, siblings and relatives," says Larimore.

"Obesity in children strongly predicts for obesity in adulthood and medical conditions formerly seen in adults are being seen in children," adds Macklin, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes.

"One in three children born in 2000 is expected to develop Type 2 diabetes, with the risk of blindness, loss of kidney function, and early death associated with it," says Larimore.

Flab-related costs are even heavier: "Recent research suggests that obese teenagers have a dramatically increased risk of dying by the time they reach middle age," he says. The average age of death for adults who had been obese as adolescents -- 46. And the most chilling consequence of childhood obesity is the renaming of an old disease "adult-onset diabetes" to Type 2 diabetes because so many kids have it. "During the past eight years, the number of children diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has risen 10-fold.

According to nutritionist and health educator Sherri Flynt, "Obesity in childhood is serious enough that many medical experts are now predicting that this will be the first generation of children to have a shorter lifespan than their parents."

The numbers are staggering: According to Flynt, co-author of SuperSized Kids, approximately 10% of children ages 2-5 years old and 15% of 6- to 11-year-olds are considered overweight -- up a whopping 200% in the past three decades.

Experts agree parents must learn how to take control of the entire families' weight challenges. "Fad diets and self-focused weight loss plans have proven ineffective and harmful for children," says Larimore.

Adds Flynt, director of the Florida Hospital Center of Nutritional Excellence, "Our society doesn't make it easy for families to be healthy and raise children that are at healthy weights. The most important thing a parent can do is be a healthy role model -- research shows that children rank their parents as their No. 1 role model."

Deutsch, of SHAPE Health and Wellness Centre, says it's all about healthy and sustainable lifestyle modifications. If their parents exercise, their kids are more likely to be more active; if they make good food choices, this will help their kids do so too, says Deutsch, whose company offers nutrition and personal training for kids.

"Ultimately weight management is a family affair," adds Macklin, who heads WeightCare, a Toronto company which specializes in permanent behaviour and activity modifications for a healthier lifestyle for overweight individuals.