Can We Do Anything About Childhood Obesity?

Between 2017 and 2018, obesity affected about 14.4 million children and adolescents in the United States. In order to create treatments, interventions, and health policies to adequately address this issue, we need solid data from well-conducted studies. In today’s episode we discuss why we’re largely lacking such data, and how we can fix that.

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Credits:
Aaron Carroll -- Writer
Meredith Danko – Social Media
Tiffany Doherty -- Writer and Script Editor
John Green -- Executive Producer
Stan Muller -- Director, Producer
Mark Olsen – Art Director, Producer

#healthcaretriage #obesity #research

[sashka]

I like that you brought up the lack of sidewalks and parks in some neighborhoods. There are so many places being built in America where kids CANT just play outside because they are built for driving without even the option to walk. I really don't get it when these suburbs get labeled "kid friendly" when there are no sidewalks, no parks, and no schools within walking distance.

[Praisethesunson]

What can we possibly do about this problem that has only existed during the 40 years since mega food conglomerates took over our food system?

[StoneSentinel]

Every one of these points is absolutely true. But... just wondering where the researchers are supposed to publish their negative results and where the grants are for researchers falsifying hypotheses instead of supporting them.

[HorzaPanda]

Mentioning walking, it’s definitely important. US and Canadian cities are all pretty terrible for it

[kmdash]

I remember when reading about life history theory that things like a grandmother's health when she was pregnant with a daughter, a mother getting adequate nutrition when pregnant, a father being in good health when he was a teenager, the amount of stress a parent undergoes, etc., are all correlated with childhood health outcomes, and that this is because epigenetics have a huge role in health.
Obviously, it's not possible to do an RCT on this stuff, but there is strong evidence that things like poverty, racism, and trauma may have an impact on childhood obesity, and yet health programs tend not to focus on improving people's lives (except in rare circumstances)..

[NelsonPascuzzi]

This episode is phenomenal for the way it debunks multiple common methodological fallacies and it seems the obesity studies are just one vehicle for demonstrating how they show up blended seamlessly into headlines and claims.

[MegaKootz]

This topic deserves a book, not a six and a half minute video. That being said, obesity in general is the product of a "fast meal" nation, be that fast food, Television dinners, or any other item that can be prepared in minutes. This is not the result of a abundance of leisure time in america, but rather the lack of abundance that ultimately forced both mother and father into the work environment. When more time goes into the work day than your children, you need fast meals, when your pay does not keep up with even inflation over the years, you need those meals to be cheap as dirt, How do they get cheap? by using the most unhealthy methods possible to create cheap, mass producible calories. This topic really does deserve a book as our obese children speak to our overall enslavement as citizens.

[ForgottenAria]

Given that there are observational studies that show that intentional weight loss almost never results in long term weight loss and in about 66% of people results in weight gain, our social obsession with weight loss might be the reason things are getting worse. Especially with studies like the Framingham Heart Study that found that weight cycling was more strongly correlated with higher rates of comorbidity than BMI. It's also unfair to say that obesity costs the health care system money when there is no strong correlation with health issues with BMI alone when you remove other factors such as lack of exercise and medical fatphobia.

[CritterKeeper]

What we really need is to stop researching obesity as a moral failing or lack of will, and start researching it as a *medical* condition! Twin and adoption studies have indicated, over and over, that obesity is as heritable as height is, but we don't see people talk about how to change peoples' behavior to make them taller, or ostracize them as gluttons and weak-willed if they're short! People who suffer from a genetic propensity to obesity need *real* help, not just to keep telling them "Move more and eat less, " which has proven over and over again to *not* *work*.

[scoople]

One idea I've had that I think would help at a systemic level would be to prioritize teaching kids how to cook in school. Many people I know grew up barely learning how to cook and have very low competence making good meals on their own even in their mid 20's. This lack of food competence leads people to spend lots of money and buy fast food or ready made food a lot which can tend more towards being delicious but lacking in nutritional diversity. Knowing how to find and read recipes, but ingredients, and cook are invaluable life skills that I believe would have massive health benefits for our society.

[AntiCliche]

the only thing that'll change childhood obesity is changing the environment that children exist in, and that means dramatically altering what kinds of foods are readily and easily available to families. It's absurd to think that we can prioritize nutritional health in a world where 90% of the easily accessed, pre-prepared and inexpensive food is highly calorie dense and low in nutritional value.

[lobaxx]

Here in Sweden, we have free school lunches for all kids that must meet the nutritional guidelines of our national nutritional authority, and mandatory cooking classes for all kids (part of "hemkunskap", or "home knowledge"). It would be intersting to know if there is any evidence or science that these policies work, since Sweden has among the lowest Child obesity rates in Europe.

[cleodello]

It's interesting to see so many comments focused on walking over food.

[Everyyoueverymiau]

Good video. What do you say about studies that show fat shaming and feeling fat, regardless of actual weight, is more harmful than being fat?

[Auride]

Please provide captions for your videos! Even the automated captions are disabled on this one for me.

[gyozakeynsianism]

Wow, OK. I knew the incentives for publishing could be bad, but I didn't know they could be THAT bad. I should have known given HCT's past videos. But boy, these analytical decisions mentioned by the one highlighted paper here are just plain bad. They would make my best econometrics students blush!

"Major societal response" sounds about right, since (childhood) obesity is so closely related to income and education, though I note that income support programs in places like the UK, Mexico and Germany don't stop those countries from being very overweight. Another great video guys.

[aprildawnsunshine]

Think it's time for the FDA to get involved and remove all the dangerous and misleading foods on our shelves. I can't stop my husband from buying junk, but he's not going to buy it when it's not there!

[virtualalias]

As a parent with 2 healthy, lean children (10 and 8) - It's calories in and calories out for children too. Mandate exercise, eliminate snacking, etc. The problem run into by parents I know are that they didn't take it seriously at the beginning (early childhood) and once the behaviors are established/habituated and the child is overweight, they're far more difficult to change without misery.

[shindousan]

Obesity should be treated as a disease of the body and mind in a social context. Part of the problem is an obesogenic environment, especially for poor people: easy access to cheap junk food, difficult access to (not so cheap) healthy food, little incentive to walk. Another part comes from the psychological need for comfort food, and this is related to anxiety and stress. The only times I managed to lose weight were when I swallowed my pride and treated myself like a sick person and saw weight loss as a long term therapy.

[rubidot]

5:39 This!!! If people can't safely walk or cycle to the places they need to go, not many people are going to walk or cycle. Everyone I know who biked to work regularly got hit by a car at least once. Biking infrastructure in the US is shameful. It could be so much better, and we'd all be better off for it.