Heart trouble can start in the young.  The rising incidence of type 2 diabetes in young people, once called “adult-onset diabetes”, is just one aspect of the obesity epidemic plaguing the United States today.  Unfortunately, both diabetes and obesity spell heart trouble, even for kids.

Obesity is like a marker for high blood pressure and high cholesterol.  Those things all cluster together to spell trouble.  In the old days, obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol was called the “deadly triad”.

The good news is that damage to arteries is reversible if children just change their behaviors.  Get them to adopt a weight loss and exercise program.  The exercise can be anything they can do in half-hour segments such as hula hooping, skipping rope, jazz dancing, karate, or a combination of these.

On the diet side, there are four simple rules: 1. Get rid of all drinks with sugar(that means no juice, no Gatorade, no soda, except diet soda, and no milk except skim milk).  2.  All snacks between meals have to be raw fruit, raw vegetables, or air-popped popcorn.  3.  At mealtime, portions of meat and starch need to be cut by 25 percent (two pieces of toast becomes one-and-a-half).  Vegetables and salads fill in any gaps.  4.  No eating in front of the television.  That combination is the worst thing you can do, sitting still and eating.

Drugs for adults have been moderately successful.  It is not like drugs are going to transform children who are massively overweight into normal weight children.  The drug has to be combined with diet and exercise.

A successful program needs to involve the entire family, especially since obese children often have at least one obese parent.  You can not just change the life of one child, it’s the whole family and life-style.