Parents must pay special attention to their children’s diet and exercise needs, a Taipei doctor said, after a 13-year-old boy he treated for diabetes and related conditions recovered after two years of treatment.
Ting Wei-hsin (丁瑋信), a pediatric endocrinologist at MacKay Memorial Hospital, said the boy, who had just entered the seventh grade, came in for a routine checkup and was diagnosed with diabetes, as well as hyperlipidemia, fatty liver disease and borderline high blood pressure.
The boy’s family was shocked, as there was not a family history of diabetes, Ting said.
At 174.5cm tall, the boy weighed 95.9kg, with a body mass index (BMI) of 31.5kg per cubic meter — much higher than the average of 18kg per cubic meter for a boy his age, Ting said.
“For BMI, we need to compare with those of the same age and gender. If a child falls between the 85th and 95th percentiles, they are considered ‘obese,’” he said.
The boy had also developed acanthosis nigricans, a condition where brown or black areas discolor the skin around the neck, armpits and other skin folds in people with obesity, Ting said.
After two years, the boy’s weight was brought down to 65kg, and his glycated hemoglobin level was reduced from 9.9 percent to a healthy 5.8 percent, he said.
Taiwanese families used to believe that a child should be pale and fat, and that if children were not, others would accuse the parents of failing to provide them with enough nutrition, he said.
He advised parents to pay close attention to the dietary habits of their children, adding that if they developed poor eating habits, these could be carried into adulthood, which could have detrimental effects later in life.
About 30 percent of elementary and junior-high school children nationwide are obese, Ting said, citing Ministry of Education data.
However, if a child’s diet and exercise are improved at an early age, they are more likely than an adult would to reverse symptoms of obesity, Ting said.
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