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Obese
Kids as Unhappy as Those With Cancer Tuesday
April 8, 2003
By Randy Dotinga TUESDAY, April 8 (HealthScoutNews) --
Obesity makes children so unhealthy and miserable that their quality of life is
slightly worse than children having chemotherapy to treat cancer, a new study
suggests.
But the researchers can't say for sure which comes first, the obesity or the
misery. "It's a complex relationship. We
don't know the answer to that," says study co-author Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer,
a pediatric gastroenterologist at the University of California, San Diego. Schwimmer, who works with sick, obese
kids at Children's Hospital & Health Center in San Diego, says he was
inspired to do the research after he noticed the children seemed unhappy. But he
couldn't find any research in the United States to suggest if fat children
suffered from a lower quality of life than other children. The study researchers surveyed 106
patients who were treated at the hospital for obesity. The patients, aged 5 to
18, had an average body mass index (BMI) of 34.7. The index is a ratio that includes
weight and height. To reach a BMI of 34 or higher, a 12-year-old boy who's
5-foot-3 would have to weigh at least 190 pounds. The results of the study appear in the
April 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association). The children took a test that measured
their quality of life by asking questions about issues such as their health,
stamina, athletic and school activities, personal relationships and general
feelings -- such as whether they were happy or sad, angry or calm. On a 100-point scale, the obese children
reported their quality of life at 67, compared to 83 for healthy, non-obese
children surveyed in another study. Parents of both sets of kids were also
questioned about the quality of life of their children, and they reported an
even larger gap -- 63 versus 88. Looked at another way, the obese
children were 5.5 times more likely to have a poor quality of life than the
healthy kids, the researchers say. "The obese children reported lower
quality of life in every single domain," Schwimmer says. "These
differences held up even when we looked at issues of gender, race, age and
socioeconomic status." The children also reported poor quality
of life regardless of whether they suffered from illnesses such as diabetes and
heart disease. To put the figures in context, the
researchers compared them to quality of life surveys of children undergoing
chemotherapy. "They've been demonstrated to have
the lowest quality of life of any pediatric health condition," Schwimmer
says. "That's why we selected them. It's a tough benchmark." The quality of life reported by children
undergoing chemotherapy was actually a slight bit better than the obese
children, the researchers found. The study doesn't offer any new
information about why very heavy children have less fulfilling lives than their
skinnier contemporaries. However, Schwimmer suspects social stigma plays a large
part. "From an early age, even at the
kindergarten level, children see obese children as different and many respond to
them differently," he says. "And certainly by junior high, children
who are still obese are clearly ostracized in many places." Dr. James Rosen is a professor of
psychology at the University of Vermont and an expert in weight control among
children. He says other stressful obstacles confronting heavy children include
"not participating in sports, physical discomfort moving around, and the
stress of trying to eat healthy when facing a junk food school cafeteria." Food and weight control can become a
"battleground" at home, he adds. And divorced parents may give their
obese children conflicting messages about the importance of controlling weight. An estimated 15 percent of American
children are obese, or one in seven, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. The rate has tripled since the 1970s. Schwimmer acknowledges the study didn't
look at very heavy children in general, but only those who visited a hospital
for treatment of obesity. In another study on obesity and children
in the April 9 Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers
at the University of Pennsylvania report that obese children who have
behavior-modification therapy can lose even more weight if they take a
weight-loss medication for adults called sibutramine. Children who were treated with
sibutramine for six months lost an average of 17 pounds, compared to just seven
pounds for those who also had the behavior-modification therapy but took a
placebo instead of the drug. The researchers caution, however, that
more testing needs to be done before doctors should recommend the drug to young
patients. |