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SPEAKOUT: Obesity a serious issue not fit for silly bets

By Dr. Mary Vernon

Published May 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Paul Campos' Rocky Mountain News column of May 21, "A $10,000 'obesity' challenge,"attacking a series of articles about obesity in The Washington Post, irresponsibly suggests that a growing concern about obesity as a significant health problem is exaggerated or, worse, "completely false."

As chairman of the board of the Denver-based American Society of Bariatric Physicians, the leading professional organization providing physicians and other health professionals with education in the medical (nonsurgical) management of weight loss and related medical conditions, I can assure Campos and his readers that he is absolutely wrong.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey reported by the National Center for Health Statistics has tracked an increase in obesity among children since 1963. The survey uses actual physical exams on a stratified, multistage probability sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized U.S. population. The findings identify a relatively stable overweight population from the 1960s to 1980. However, from 1980 to 2004, using the same criteria, the percent of obese children ages 6-11 increased from 6.5 percent to 18.8 percent and the 12-19 year age group increased from 5 percent to 17.4 percent.

In the past, Type 2 diabetes was considered an adult disease with onset often occurring after age 40. According to the Centers for Disease Control, clinically-based reports and regional studies suggest that Type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents, although still rare, is being diagnosed more frequently, particularly in African-Americans, Hispanic/Latino-Americans and American Indians. Obesity is the most common contributing factor.

Overweight children are also at greater risk for future adverse health conditions including hypertension, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, stroke and gall bladder disease to name a few. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to 80 percent of obese teens become obese adults. If not treated, childhood obesity might lead to additional medical conditions during adulthood, including asthma, coronary artery disease, pulmonary disease and increased mortality rates.

The toll of childhood obesity can also be measured in terms of the dollars spent in this country treating children with obesity-related disease. In 2002 Pediatrics Magazine published an analysis of the hospitalization costs associated with childhood obesity. From 1979-1999 the costs increased fourfold.

By 2004 the medical costs attributable to adult obesity had risen to $75 billion annually, representing nearly 6 percent of all medical costs in this country. More than half of that expense is paid though Medicaid and Medicare. A Thomson Reuters research study estimated the country's overall expense of care for overweight youth at $14 billion annually.

T. Kristian van Almen, Ph.D., co-director of Committed to Kids, an obesity treatment center in California and co-author of the Handbook of Pediatric Obesity, has no hesitancy at all in saying that "a national childhood obesity epidemic threatens to reverse many of the medical breakthroughs we have experienced in the 20th century."

Members of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians work with people of all ages to improve health by reducing body fat using an individualized approach crafted for the patient that might include dietary modification, exercise prescription, psychological support and medication, if necessary. We are well aware of the serious conditions associated with obesity, including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, numerous cancers and other metabolic disorders.

The Washington Post has done an important public service in raising awareness. Most responsible scientists would concur that obesity - among both adults and children - is a serious health problem in this country. The authors of those articles are in good company with other Campos "alarmists" about an obesity epidemic, including physicians, scientists and other experts at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, UCLA/RAND, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, the University of Colorado, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and national physician and health organizations including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians and the American Diabetes Association.

Dr. Mary Vernon is chairman of the board of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.

Comments

  • May 26, 2008

    7:16 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    Dr Mary, could you also include the names of the faceless government "scientists" who have decided what is "overweight" and what criteria they used and when this was established? All you've done is repeat the main stream tripe about the overweight and the related concerns. That "Dr" in front of your name doesn't give you a free pass to say what you want without documentation. And, what is your solution? Whine and have more studies?

  • May 26, 2008

    8:09 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    dougers writes:

    Dear Ms Vernon, you must be new here, Paul Campos isn't the blithering idiot he appears to be in his column, but carefully calculates his comments to either add humor to the otherwise boring editorial section or bait people new to his column. He'll write one of these zany obesity columns 3-4 times a year. Obviously he has other topics equally hilarious that reoccur over time. But I do appreciate you writing up the health information, I suppose there are a few others that actually think he's serious.

  • May 26, 2008

    11:58 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    samsmargolis writes:

    "As chairman of the board of the Denver-based American Society of Bariatric Physicians"...and, a lifelong member of the habitually offended, blah-blah-blah-tee-dah.

    "The survey uses actual physical exams on a stratified, multistage probability sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized U.S. population." See? How can you possibly argue with that? And you said institutional food was bad. It's soooo good, they won't even bother using it for surveys.

  • May 26, 2008

    1:10 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    peterpi writes:

    Sometimes I find Campos interesting. Somtimes I find him over the top. But when it comes to his quarterly obesity columns, there's no "sometimes" about it. He's always over the top. For a guy who loves to dish it out against Bush and other targets, he's sure thin-skinned when it comes to obesity. I keep having visions of his personal physician telling the grump to eat his peas and, no, pork skins and potato chips do not count as meat and vegetables.
    Mike_in_Hartsell, regarding what criteria the good doctor and her colleagues are using, I think it has shifted. I swear that the criteria for a "normal" level of cholesterol, for example, has steadily lowered. I wonder if it's because the drug companies selling cholesterol drugs keep moving the goalposts closer to the 50-yard line in order to provide theselves with more customers.