“My holy Name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel. I will not let My holy Name be profaned anymore, and the Gentiles will know that I am Yahweh, the Holy One in Israel.”
Ezekiel 39: 7
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Childhood Obesity and Parents’ Bad Habits
See “More Obese Children Should Get Weight-Loss Surgery, Doctors Say”.
Please don’t believe that a lot of young children need surgery to solve their obesity problem. They have been taught bad habits. Surgery can’t solve bad habits.
Look at the Evidence
Go to the mall—any mall, anywhere, any time—and you will see obese kids with obese parents. Some of the children are very young and grossly obese.
When I was a kid, almost no one was fat. Obesity was something we saw in adults, and not too many of them. Things have really changed and not for the better.
“The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that, for 2015-2016 in the U.S., 39.8% of adults aged 20 and over were obese (including 7.6% with severe obesity) and that another 31.8% were overweight. Obesity rates have increased for all population groups in the United States over the last several decades.” (Click here for more data.)
It’s Math, not Calculus
Do the math. 39.8% of adults in the U.S. are obese. 31.8% of adults in the U.S. are overweight. That means almost 72% of Americans are either overweight or obese, and we know that those percentages are conservative.
How do we know that those percentages are conservative?
We know that those percentages are conservative because we have known for decades the our “normal weight tables” are wrong. People who weigh less than “normal weight” are healthier than people who weigh “normal weight”.
The data is very clear. That’s not my opinion.
Normal Weight Tables
“Normal weight tables” became a hot political issue in the 1980s when Dr. C. Everett Koop was Surgeon General of the United States. He proposed adjusting the “normal weight tables” to reflect more accurate data.
Dr. Koop encountered stiff resistance from physicians, particularly family doctors or general practitioners. They argued that their overweight and obese patients could not or would not lose weight even though the risks associated with obesity and overweight had been explained to them. The doctors told Dr. Koop in no uncertain terms that adjusting the “normal weight tables” to reflect reality might cause their patients to lose all hope and become depressed.
I wish I was joking, but I’m not. We didn’t correct our “normal weight tables” even though we knew they were wrong, because we didn’t want to make overweight and obese people feel bad about themselves.
What Do We Know?
This is what we know:
- Weight is a function of calories in and calories out.
- Calories in has to do with food and beverage consumption.
- Calories out has to do with exercise and physical exertion.
- If you eat and drink too much and exercise too little, you will put on weight.
- If you eat and drink too much and exercise too little long enough, you will become obese.
- Children learn “normal behavior” from their parents. Children watch their parents very closely. Whatever their parents do is “normal” to them. They won’t begin to question normality until they get older. By then, they will have picked up their parents’ bad habits.
“A child with one obese parent has a 50 percent chance of being obese. When both parents are obese, their children have an 80 percent chance of obesity.” (Click here for more data.)
The Problem is Getting Worse
In the 1980s when Dr. Koop proposed adjusting the “normal weight tables”, 25% of Americans were obese. Using those same flawed “normal weight tables”, since the 1980s the obesity rate in the U.S. has increased from 25% to 39.8%, and we know that those percentages are conservative.
If this problem continues to grow, our healthcare system won’t survive. We can’t afford to pay the healthcare bills of so many overweight and obese people. They will bankrupt our nation.
See “Will Obesity Bankrupt the United States in the Near Future?” and “Unchecked Obesity Rates Could Bankrupt Nation”.
Teach Your Children Well
King Solomon got it right. He said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22: 6)
For parents, telling is important, but doing is more important. Children learn much more from watching their parents than they do from listening to them. Parents’ bad habits will be magnified in their children.
I can’t overemphasize this important truth. It’s deadly serious. If you love your children, please remember it.
See “Childhood Obesity Causes & Consequences“.
A Personal Example
I had open heart surgery in January 2019 to replace a failing aortic valve. I had a disease called aortic stenosis. It’s genetic.
My aortic valve also turned out to be a bicuspid valve. That’s genetic, too. A bicuspid aortic valve is life-threatening in and of itself, and I didn’t know I had one until my surgeon told me after surgery.
The prognosis for people with aortic stenosis is certain death 100% of the time unless the aortic valve is replaced.
I am not overweight or obese. As it turns out, the probability of surviving open heart surgery is closely related to a person’s BMI. The more overweight a person is, the less likely he can survive surgery.
My heart surgeon looked at my chart, looked at me, and said, “You have a 99% chance of surviving surgery.”
When they cut out your heart, there is always a chance you will die. My probability of dying during surgery was very low because my overall health was very good and my BMI was in the athletic range.
Jumping ahead: I had a complication during surgery, and I survived it easily. I would have died if I had been overweight or obese.
My chances of surviving open heart surgery were very good because I was not overweight. If I had been obese when my disease was diagnosed, I would not have had enough time to lose the excess pounds before surgery, and my probability of survival would have been much lower.
My father had the same disease I had. As I said, it’s genetic. He was obese. He had open heart surgery and died.
Don’t take overweight and obesity lightly, especially overweight and obesity in children.
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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
