Obese children face real health risks, doctors warn

Doctors yesterday warned that aside from the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes faced by overweight children, 25 percent of obese children in Taiwan suffer from abnormal liver function.

In a seminar organized by the Child Health Promotion Society (中華民國兒童保健協會) yesterday, Dr. Wu Tzu-tsung (吳子聰) -- director of gastroenterology at the Taipei Veteran's General hospital's (VGH,台北榮民總醫院) Department of Pediatrics -- said that of the overweight children who came to the outpatient services, one out of four has abnormal levels of liver enzymes.

"Obesity not only resulted in children's low self-esteem, but also damaged their normal liver function," Wu said.

"Moreover, since most obese children also tend to have high levels of lipids and uric acid, they have a higher chance of getting cardiovascular diseases when they grow up," he said.

Doctor Huang Bi-tao (黃碧桃), the director of the department of pediatrics at the hospital, said that she once treated an 8-year-old girl who weighed nearly 60 kg.

"She could not catch her breath whenever she moved, her obesity had weakened her heart as well," Huang said, adding that the girl's body mass index (BMI) was 30 when Huang first saw her.

The normal BMI for a girl of 8 should be between 14.6 and 18.8.

The girl regained her normalheart function after losing weight by going on diet. But Huang worries that as the number of overweight children increases, the incidence of heart attacks among youngsters would increase as well.

According to a survey conducted by the Department of Health between 1993 and 1996, nearly 7 percent of girls and 5 percent of boys between the ages of 7 and 12 could be categorized as obese; while 10.8 percent of girls and 12.8 percent of boys in the same age range were overweight.

As for teenagers, the government department's survey showed that 13 percent of females and 9 percent of males were overweight; while 7.5 percent of both females and males suffered from obesity.

"Since overweight adolescents have a 70 to 80 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults, reducing the rate of child obesity is the key to preventing many adults from suffering from chronic diseases that are triggered by obesity," Chiu Shu-shi (邱淑媞), director of Taipei City's health bureau, said yesterday.

Some doctors have suggested that since many overweight children who are still growing will naturally reduce their rate of weight gain as they grow up, the goal in controlling their obesity would be for the children to maintain their current weight.

However, for overweight adolescents who wish to avoid the health problems associated with obesity, the healthiest way to lose weight would still be to control their daily diets while exercising regularly.