Children And Teens Are Increasingly Becoming Obese

Childhood obesity has been getting press coverage for a very long time. Even in the US where this has reached epidemic proportions, the press coverage has made little difference.

We are not going to assign blame to people or discuss what makes people obese as we all know this already. If a child is overweight or obese now, then this can have major health dangers and may possibly be life-threatening in later years. Suffering physically and even psychologically is what a noticeable percentage of an entire generation experience. It is hard enough to be a teen without having to endure being bullied about weight by others as well. As an obese child, they may have to face some of the following problems.

Hypertension or high blood pressure is almost synonymous with obesity regardless of age. Some severe medical conditions don't appear in obese children but others still do. For kids who are severely overweight or obese, high blood pressure is a very common problem. In addition to the physical stress that is put on the body from the extra weight there are major psychological stress factors there too. Physical and verbal abuse from classmates and peers is the norm for children who are obese. It build and builds and becomes a very stressful situation for the child which then leads to high blood pressure.

Perhaps one of the oldest expressions out there is that kids are cruel. Most of us experienced this first hand in our childhoods. Kids who are obese are typically targets of intense bullying and extraordinary levels of verbal humiliation. The fact that most of the kids survive all of those years of school without losing their minds is a miracle. We all understand that that kind of long lasting abuse can have severe consequences later on. The list of conditions this kind of constant psychological abuse can cause is a long one.

The process of socialization and development of a human's personality and individuality gets a lot faster during the teen years. The development of a teen's body image is especially critical as well. An obese teen is going to have a hard time developing normally as far as these things are concerned. This causes a teenager to leave high school at distinct developmental disadvantages. Normal competition and success levels will be far more challenging for these kids. "The walking wounded" is a term that is often used to describe kids, teens and young adults who were forced to deal with this condition. This is because obesity ravages both the body and the mind.

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