Childhood obesity up, experts warn of early onset of ailments

PUNE: Waistlines of young children in Pune city are expanding, and experts warn that if lifestyle modifications and early medical interventions are not initiated, these children will be at the risk of various health problems early in their adulthood.
Pune-based Chest Research Foundation (CRF), in collaboration with the Symbiosis International University, conducted a study recently, mapping 1,536 school children from two schools in Pune, aged 5-12 years and found 8.2% of them obese and 28.7% overweight.
There has been a steady rise in the number of obese and overweight children in Pune city - two years ago, 7.6% of the children surveyed were found to be obese and 27.5% of them were overweight.
"We have recently completed an analysis of the body mass index (BMI) of the children from two schools in Pune, and were surprised to find a high prevalence of obesity among children (8.2%) and those who were overweight (28.7%). The prevalence was higher among girls than boys (8.9% and 31% in girls as against 7.7% and 27% in boys)," said CRF researcher Sneha Limaye, who has been the lead investigator for the study.
CRF has been following up with the 1,536 children for the past four years and studying their annual lung growth (peak expiratory flow rate and peak inspiratory flow rate) and the prevalence rates of asthma and respiratory tract infections.
"We had earlier reported that asthma was growing at a rapid rate (the number of cases almost doubling over 5 years) among school children in Pune city. We, therefore, wanted to find out changing trends in asthma prevalence with time. It is known that obesity increases the risk of asthma by around 2.5 times, hence we decided to study the children's body mass index (BMI)," said chest physician Sundeep Salvi, director of CRF.
Sharing his view, Rajiv Yeravdekar, dean of the faculty of health and biomedical sciences said, "Obesity in children has been a growing trend in our schools and university in recent years."
Usually, most of the obese or overweight children lead a sedentary life either sitting in school classrooms or tuition classes. "When at home, they either watch television or play video games. After putting on a lot of weight, they start complaining of problems like difficulty in breathing and snoring at night," said paediatrician Sanjay Lalwani, medical director of Bharati Hospital.
Paediatrician Sharad Agarkhedkar said, "Children are exposed to diets high in bad fats and sugar and activities such as computer games discourage physical activity. If children continue to do this most part of the childhood and adolescence, they are more likely to land up with all sorts of heath troubles early in life."
Parental eating behaviour has a strong influence on children. "Children often eat what their parents eat. To prevent obesity in adulthood, it is important to take necessary precautions from childhood," said bariatric and metabolic surgeon Jayshree Todkar.