March 9th, 2011 
Scott Scientists say our present generation may be the first to have a shorter lifespan than their children. That is a bold statement, but childhood obesity continues to incline, and is a major factor in today’s society. For children and adolescents, almost one in five are obese and according to national statistics, it is only going to increase.
The effects of childhood obesity can be subtle to very extreme in children, and are similar to those as you would find in adults. To better understand the effects of obesity in children, we can be place effects into one of three categories…general health, medical, and psychological. Below, let’s examine popular effects.
General Health Effects
General health effects are genetic and environmental in nature. Keep in mind that eating healthy may not be enough, especially if your parents are overweight.
Before looking to medication, make certain your home environment is in the best possible situation to induce healthy living. Start with your home eating habits, healthier lifestyle, start a consistent exercise routine.
Medical Effects
Even with a healthier lifestyle, medical effects may not be avoided.
The most apparent effects of overweight children include Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes. Diabetes is a reaction to the way your body handles insulin. Insulin is required to move blood sugar into your cells.
Type 2 Diabetes occurs when the body does not respond properly to insulin, called insulin resistance. Specifically, this means that your muscle, liver, and fat cells do not properly respond to insulin therefore, not allowing proper absorption of blood sugar. This type of diabetes can be caused by unhealthy eating, or anything outside of genetics.
Other medical effects include high blood pressure, hypertension, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, can be at greater risk for developing coronary heart disease and metabolic syndrome.
There is no doubt that these are effects of poor eating habits, or obesity, as the trend along with the number of obese cases both in children and adults.
One of the many questions of obesity is that if you take obesity into adulthood are you still at risk to have these effects, and the answer is a resounding yes. Just as with habits, effects can just as well be carried forward from childhood, to adolescents, to adulthood. This is even seen if the adolescent is overweight but grows to a normal weight as an adult. The problem is that the eating habits, lack of exercise, and genetics still are playing a role in the effects.
Psychological Effects
As we have learned, health effects, calls by both your environment and genetics have profound effect on obesity rates, we have also learned the medical effects obesity can have, there is also a psychological effect that a child can have from being overweight.
One of the most enlightening studies done on obese children showed that those with severe obesity responded with quality of life scores which were found to be as low as children undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment. This shows that there is much a mental and social effect as there is medical effects.
Low self-esteem and social outcast Rudy most alarming effects of this study. There are numerous reasons why a child may have these thoughts which include, feeling isolated or lonely, teasing from classmates or friends, or simple physical limitations due to being overweight. Often we see parents not properly handling eating habits with their children, but the study showed that the parents of these children had even lower scores for their child’s well-being than the children themselves.
Now this is certainly an extreme when it comes to scoring effects on obese children, but there has been no study done that indicates obesity does not have some psychological effect on children.
As we have learned here in this article, that the effects of obesity is widespread. Though they can be extreme, as such in heart related diseases, but in most cases it is reversible. The body can certainly adapt to healthier eating and physical activity, which will help a child mentally have better quality of life, which will positively impact their everyday life, in the future.
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