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CNN Live Today
'Daily Dose'
Aired August 04, 2003 - 11:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The American Academy of Pediatrics has new guidelines to prevent childhood obesity.
Let's turn to our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen for our "Daily Dose" on that huge problem, literally, for American children.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Literally a huge problem.
The last time they looked at the statistics, which was the year 2000, 15 percent of children over the age of 6 were overweight, and everyone thinks that it certainly has gone up since then.
So the American Academy of Pediatrics got their obesity specialists together, and said, what can we tell America's pediatricians about what to do about this problem? Let's take a look at what they came up with. First of all, they said that pediatricians need to calculate a child's BMI, that's body mass index. And what that means is that pediatricians are supposed to take a child's height, and weight, and gender, and age into consideration. They come up with a number, usually in the 20s or the 30s. That says whether or not a child is overweight, underweight or normal weight. Pediatricians are supposed to have been doing this for quite awhile, but there's a concern that not all of them are.
The second thing pediatricians are supposed to do is encourage healthy eating if a child is overweight, also encourage exercise, even if the child isn't overweight, limit TV to two hours a day. They actually named that specific number, limit it to two hours a day. And also advocate with lawmakers and food companies so that there will be more healthy foods available to children.
Now, if you have been listening to this, you might be thinking, well, duh, of course pediatricians should tell the parents of overweight children to exercise and eat better. Can't they come up with something like that? Sort of the sad fact, Daryn, is that there's not really that much else to do besides eat better, exercise more.
KAGAN: Turn the TV off.
COHEN: And turn the TV off.
KAGAN: Well, the other kind of duh out there is, can't you just look at your own child and know whether they're overweight or not?
COHEN: You can't always tell. And one of the reasons, unfortunately, is that because obesity has become such an epidemic in the United States among children, is studies have shown that many parents think, oh, Billy looks just fine, when in fact Billy is 10 pounds overweight. It's that all of his friends are also 10 pounds overweight, so Billy looks just like everybody else. So that's been a big problem.
The other problem is that you can't just go to the Internet and put your kids weight in, and height in and age in to see if they are overweight. You can do this with adults, but you can't do this with children. Here for example, this is off the CDC's Web Site. What you have to do, is you have to go to this chart and do all this plotting, and then you have to do a mathematical calculation, then you have go to a second chart and do more plotting. It is -- I tried to do it with my children; I couldn't do it. You have to actually go to a pediatrician, and they're still in the process of being trained how to do this.
So it's unfortunate, you and I can go to a site and put in our height and weight and figure it out. But you can't do that yet with children.
KAGAN: And then, finally, most kids after they get past that shot phase are only go to pediatricians once a year. And yet I would think this is something that should be monitored more than once a year.
COHEN: Absolutely. And that is a big problem, because over the course of a year, your child can go from being a perfectly fine weight to being overweight, so that is another hurdle that people have to overcome, and so parents need to be able to track their children and really look at their children, and, again, studies show that people often get it wrong. They think their kid's OK when they're not.
KAGAN: Thanks for tip. Appreciate it, Elizabeth Cohen with our "Daily Dose."
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 4, 2003 - 11:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The American Academy of Pediatrics has new guidelines to prevent childhood obesity.
Let's turn to our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen for our "Daily Dose" on that huge problem, literally, for American children.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Literally a huge problem.
The last time they looked at the statistics, which was the year 2000, 15 percent of children over the age of 6 were overweight, and everyone thinks that it certainly has gone up since then.
So the American Academy of Pediatrics got their obesity specialists together, and said, what can we tell America's pediatricians about what to do about this problem? Let's take a look at what they came up with. First of all, they said that pediatricians need to calculate a child's BMI, that's body mass index. And what that means is that pediatricians are supposed to take a child's height, and weight, and gender, and age into consideration. They come up with a number, usually in the 20s or the 30s. That says whether or not a child is overweight, underweight or normal weight. Pediatricians are supposed to have been doing this for quite awhile, but there's a concern that not all of them are.
The second thing pediatricians are supposed to do is encourage healthy eating if a child is overweight, also encourage exercise, even if the child isn't overweight, limit TV to two hours a day. They actually named that specific number, limit it to two hours a day. And also advocate with lawmakers and food companies so that there will be more healthy foods available to children.
Now, if you have been listening to this, you might be thinking, well, duh, of course pediatricians should tell the parents of overweight children to exercise and eat better. Can't they come up with something like that? Sort of the sad fact, Daryn, is that there's not really that much else to do besides eat better, exercise more.
KAGAN: Turn the TV off.
COHEN: And turn the TV off.
KAGAN: Well, the other kind of duh out there is, can't you just look at your own child and know whether they're overweight or not?
COHEN: You can't always tell. And one of the reasons, unfortunately, is that because obesity has become such an epidemic in the United States among children, is studies have shown that many parents think, oh, Billy looks just fine, when in fact Billy is 10 pounds overweight. It's that all of his friends are also 10 pounds overweight, so Billy looks just like everybody else. So that's been a big problem.
The other problem is that you can't just go to the Internet and put your kids weight in, and height in and age in to see if they are overweight. You can do this with adults, but you can't do this with children. Here for example, this is off the CDC's Web Site. What you have to do, is you have to go to this chart and do all this plotting, and then you have to do a mathematical calculation, then you have go to a second chart and do more plotting. It is -- I tried to do it with my children; I couldn't do it. You have to actually go to a pediatrician, and they're still in the process of being trained how to do this.
So it's unfortunate, you and I can go to a site and put in our height and weight and figure it out. But you can't do that yet with children.
KAGAN: And then, finally, most kids after they get past that shot phase are only go to pediatricians once a year. And yet I would think this is something that should be monitored more than once a year.
COHEN: Absolutely. And that is a big problem, because over the course of a year, your child can go from being a perfectly fine weight to being overweight, so that is another hurdle that people have to overcome, and so parents need to be able to track their children and really look at their children, and, again, studies show that people often get it wrong. They think their kid's OK when they're not.
KAGAN: Thanks for tip. Appreciate it, Elizabeth Cohen with our "Daily Dose."
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
