Girth control

Deaths, crime, smoking, binge drinking and pregnancies are all down among our children, according to a just-released federal report. But hold off on the fireworks celebration. The report also says American children will soon outweigh a medium-sized hippo.

They’re becoming “Well-behaved little butterballs,” one headline wryly proclaimed.

Even blind people have been able to observe this girth growth; what used to be the pitter-patter of little feet has become more of a rumble. Still, the figures are shocking.

Since 1980, the number of obese children exploded by 2 times, according to the “Report on America’s Children,” produced by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Institutes of Health. Some 15 percent of Americans aged 6 to 18 are obese, compared with merely 6 percent in 1980.

A horrific one-fourth of Mexican-American children are obese, along with 22 percent of black ones.

Incidentally, “obese” doesn’t mean simply overweight; in technical terms it means “downright fat.”

Studies show that fat children (beyond about the age of 2) are far more likely to grow up to be fat adults. And fat adults have a far greater likelihood of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and a huge array of other diseases.

But even as children, they suffer. What used to be called “adult-onset diabetes” has become so common in children that “adult-onset diabetes” has dropped out of use, replaced with the term “type-2.”

What’s to blame for this? Maybe we should instead ask “Who?” Is it the fault of a 3-year-old — or his or her 33-year-old parents? Children eat more food than ever, more junk, watch more TV, play more video games and do fewer outdoor activities. Most of this happens right at home.

The remedy for this does not require an “Idiot’s Guide.” Parents need to make the children eat better, limit their TV and video game time, and tell them to go out and play.

It’s also vital that they set a good example. It’s both difficult and unfair to insist that your children switch off “Captain Planet” when they see you watching back-to-back episodes of “Seinfeld” five days a week.

Don’t think your children are oblivious to what you eat, how much you exercise or how fat you are. “Do as I say; not as I do,” doesn’t work.

Parental obesity more than doubles the risk of adult obesity or overweight among children under 10, as the New England Journal of Medicine reported in 1997. Genetics may play a role, but as the study’s lead author noted, “Our genes aren’t changing that fast. Instead, children imitate their parents’ eating and exercise habits.”

Now consider that in 2001 over a fifth of American adults (44 million) were obese according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 74 percent leap since 1991.

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