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Study: Reducing Parent Stress May Help Prevent Childhood Obesity

Tatyana Meshcheryakova March 13, 2026 No Comments

Childhood obesity has become a growing concern in the United States and around the world. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), child and teen obesity is at a record high. While experts have long emphasized healthy eating and regular physical activity as key prevention strategies, new research suggests another factor may play a critical role: parent stress.

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics indicates that helping parents manage stress more effectively could significantly reduce the risk of obesity in young children. Researchers from Yale University found that parental stress may influence children’s eating habits, family routines, and long-term health outcomes more than previously understood.

Rajita Sinha, who led the research team, said:

It’s the third leg of the stool… We already knew that stress can be a big contributor in the development of childhood obesity. The surprise was that when parents handled stress better, their parenting improved, and their young child’s obesity risk went down.

Previous studies have shown that children with overweight parents are more likely to develop obesity themselves, but stress appears to amplify that risk. When parents are overwhelmed or chronically stressed, family habits can shift in ways that affect children’s health.

Common patterns linked to high parental stress include greater reliance on fast food or convenience meals, less consistent family routines, reduced time for physical activity, and lower levels of positive parenting behaviors, such as patience, warmth, and active listening. These factors can shape children’s eating patterns and lifestyle habits at a young age, setting the stage for long-term health outcomes.

Traditional childhood obesity prevention programs typically focus on nutrition education and increasing physical activity. While these strategies are important, they often fail to create lasting change.

The Yale research team wanted to see whether addressing parent stress directly could improve outcomes. To test this idea, researchers conducted a 12-week randomized prevention trial involving 114 parents with children between the ages of two and five who were already overweight or at risk of obesity. The families represented a diverse range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Parents were assigned to one of two groups (both groups attended weekly sessions lasting up to two hours). The Parenting Mindfully for Health (PMH) program combined mindfulness training, behavioral self-regulation strategies, and guidance on healthy eating and physical activity. The standard health counseling group received education on nutrition and exercise only.

Researchers tracked several factors during the study, including parent stress levels, children’s weight changes, parenting behaviors such as patience, warmth, and communication, and children’s healthy and unhealthy food intake. Children’s weight was also measured three months after the program ended.

The results were striking. Parents who participated in the stress-management program experienced lower stress levels, improved positive parenting behaviors, and healthier food choices for their children. Most importantly, their children showed no significant weight gain three months after the program ended.

In contrast, parents in the standard counseling group did not show improvements in stress or parenting behavior. Their children also experienced significant weight increases, with researchers noting a six-fold higher risk of moving into the overweight or obesity category by the three-month follow-up.

According to Sinha, the combination of mindfulness and self-regulation tools helped parents maintain healthier family habits. She said:

The combination of mindfulness with behavioral self-regulation to manage stress, integrated with healthy nutrition and physical activity, seemed to protect young children from some of the negative effects of stress on weight gain.

The findings highlight how family dynamics and emotional well-being influence childhood health outcomes. Young children rely heavily on their parents to establish daily routines, such as meal planning, grocery shopping, physical activity, and sleep schedules. When parents are under chronic stress — from work, finances, or daily responsibilities — those routines can break down.

The study builds on ongoing work at the Yale Stress Center, an interdisciplinary research group that examines how stress affects physical and mental health.

While the study focused on a structured intervention program, its findings point to several practical strategies families can adopt to support healthier lifestyles:

Make Stress Management a Priority. Simple stress-reduction techniques, such as mindfulness exercises, deep breathing, or short daily breaks, can help parents stay calm and present.
Maintain Consistent Family Routines. Regular meal times, bedtime schedules, and family activities create structure that supports healthy habits.
Focus on Positive Parenting. Warmth, patience, and communication can improve children’s emotional well-being and encourage healthier behavior.
Model Healthy Habits. Children often mirror their parents’ behaviors, including food choices and physical activity levels.
Seek Support When Needed. Parenting can be demanding. Support groups, counseling, or community programs can help families manage stress and build healthier routines.

Looking ahead, future research will examine the long-term impact of stress-management programs like Parenting Mindfully for Health. Larger studies following families over two years are already underway.

If these findings continue to hold, childhood obesity prevention programs may soon expand beyond diet and exercise to include family well-being and stress management, recognizing that a healthy home environment can be just as important as what’s on the dinner plate.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The weight of stress: Helping parents may protect children from obesity,” Yale News, 3/6/26
Source: “Mindfulness Intervention for Parent Stress and Childhood Obesity Risk: A Randomized Trial,” Pediatrics, 3/6/26
Source: “Parents’ stress may be quietly driving childhood obesity, Yale study finds,” ScienceDaily, 3/8/26
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Come At It Sideways

Pat Hartman March 12, 2026 No Comments

In both scientific literature and in mass-market publications and media presentations, there are tons of articles about obesity and young people. This piece by several authors, originally published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, was also placed online by ScienceDirect.com. The full title is “Weight Stigma in Adolescents With Obesity From Low-Income Backgrounds: Qualitative Perspectives From Adolescents and Caregivers.”

It begins by affirming that “Weight stigma is a common experience for adolescents at high weight statuses.” High weight “status” sounds rather impressive, but it only means heavy. Status is a neutral word that simply indicates an individual’s standing in a ranked array. Here, it carries no connotation of being famous, influential, wealthy, etc.

The case is, in fact, exactly the opposite. As society operates today, high weight status coexists with low societal status and low economic status, and quite often with racial minority status. The information was collected from 29 adolescents who had been referred to weight management, and 26 of their caregivers.

The interesting aspect is that the material is derived from a “secondary analysis,” meaning that the subjects were not being directly or intentionally interviewed on the topic of weight stigma. Despite the fact that weight stigma was “not a focus of the interviews,” the young participants nevertheless did make a significant number of remarks incidental to the primary material of the interviews.

Double duty

In other words, two different batches of scientists plumbed the same cache of raw material for two different scholarly investigations, allowing the second group to highlight a situation without even having done the pertinent research on it; thus approaching their topic sideways, or even through the back door. PubMed said,

The present study sought to characterize weight stigma experiences and internalization in adolescents from low-income backgrounds. This was done by reporting on teen’s experiences of weight stigma in daily life and in conversations with health-care professionals, and examining the effect of internalization of this stigma.

So, again, given the broader focus of the primary study, weight stigma was not a concern of the interviews. Science is strict, of course, but as any good detective knows, people who are being questioned will often reveal the most useful information when not talking directly about the “subject at hand.” This collection of interviews turned out to be the perfect illustrative example:

However, almost all participants identified weight stigma and bias as influencing their lives and medical care. Identified themes included the following: (1) difficulty identifying preferences regarding weight-related terminology; (2) commonality of experienced weight stigma; and (3) significant effect of internalized weight bias on adolescent daily living.

In the discussion, the authors characterized the presence of weight stigma as “nearly ubiquitous” amongst the overweight low-income youth of America. Again, these authors emphasized the point: Given that weight stigma was not “a topic within the interview guide,” the discovery of so much of it was “particularly stark.” It was pointed out that attitudes characterized as almost hostile were experienced, “including in health-care settings.”

The participant demographics are described as follows:

65.5% of adolescents identified their gender as female, 34.5% male, and 0% other… 37.9% of adolescent participants identified as Hispanic/Latino, 24.1% identified as Black/African American, 24.1% identified as multiracial, 10.3% identified as non-Hispanic White, and 3.4% identified as Asian.

The authors emphasized the point again, that “nearly all adolescents in the present study identified instances of weight stigma and bias, despite no direct questions regarding this topic.”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Weight Stigma in Adolescents With Obesity From Low-Income Backgrounds: Qualitative Perspectives From Adolescents and Caregivers,” ScienceDirect.com, May 2025
Source: “Weight Stigma in Adolescents With Obesity From Low-Income Backgrounds: Qualitative Perspectives From Adolescents and Caregivers,” PubMed.com, May 2025
Image by DeeDee51/Pixabay

More Obesity-Associated Dangers and Costs

Pat Hartman March 10, 2026 No Comments

Here is a fact about the great majority of news items that fall under the heading of dangers associated with obesity. By strange coincidence, they also belong in the category of obesity costs. For example, a story last fall was headlined, “Obese Children Face Nearly 5-Fold Higher Risk of Fractures, Study Finds.”

Nobody wants to see children suffer fractures, and everyone knows that the repair of broken bones must be paid for somehow. In the journal Scientific Reports, orthopedic surgeons published an article explaining that childhood obesity will influence the details and nuances of fracture patterns not only in specific cases, but also in relation to the overall risk of injury.

The study subjects included almost 18,000 hospitalized children classified as obese, and for comparison purposes, more than 3,000 healthy children. It comes as no surprise that, among these hefty young patients, leg fractures occur much more frequently than other kinds. But broken arms, as well as fractures in the torso and spine, happen very often, too. The least likely bone damage-causing incident for an obese child would be a head injury.

The overweight children tend to have dyslipidemia, which might be caused by heredity, lifestyle, or a combination of the two factors. Among other effects, it causes elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Then, the news gets worse, because as it turns out, even the pre-born are also at risk. The researchers concluded that…

Proactive weight management and careful clinical assessment could play a vital role in safeguarding children’s musculoskeletal health.

Speaking of births…

Over the years, it has become more and more obvious that Cesarean sections lead to obesity, and vice versa. Once a pregnant obese patient’s weight is known, the medical profession is able to predict with startling accuracy the percentage of likelihood that a C-section will be needed. According to Dr. Melissa Riegel, of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine,

Failed induction of labor (IOL) is a leading indicator for cesarean delivery, and cesarean delivery is 80% more likely in patients with obesity undergoing IOL, than in normal-weight patients.

About these cases, many more details are available, but what it all boils down to is that obese mothers and their infants face unfavorable odds for a trauma-free birth experience, and the phrase “maternal morbidity and mortality” is frequently used. Dr. Riegel summed up the situation for a journalist by saying,

There is a role for translational work to investigate the specific biological changes in patients with obesity that might contribute to an increased risk of cesarean delivery and there is also a role for investigating the effectiveness of different labor induction interventions specifically in patients with obesity.

It is also very obvious that pregnant obese women need “clear counseling” (at the very least), but it is equally evident that, by the time an egg has been fertilized, the opportunity for meaningful behavioral change has pretty much passed. It also goes without saying that every stage and aspect of the pregnancy will rack up bills more substantial than those issued to mothers whose weight is in the healthy range.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Obese Children Face Nearly 5-Fold Higher Risk of Fractures, Study Finds,” MedicalDialogues.in, 08/21/25
Source: “Dyslipidemia,” MerckManuals.com, July 2025
Source: “High Cesarean Rates Persist in Obesity Despite Standardized Protocols,” SMFM.org, 03/15/24
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What, More Costs?

Pat Hartman March 5, 2026 No Comments

A decade ago, we noted that not a single country on earth had been known to experience a declining rate of obesity during its most recent year. In the United States, that signified an enormous win for the food industry, which was selling an additional $20 billion worth of food per annum, thanks to the extra $400 worth of their products being consumed annually by the average American kid, as compared to the previous year.

Of course, the math varies from one country to the next, which in a sinister sense doesn’t even matter, since the overlords who rake in the profits have dominion over the whole planet anyway. While snacking or dining in jets or yachts, they regard themselves as the only genuine world citizens. In each port of call, they know how to obtain the most health-inducing vegetables, fruits, meats, seafood, and beverages to buy with the dimes and dollars of chubby little children far away.

Fun fact: Despite their busy lives, CEOs in the food industry (and every other business) tend to consult medical experts in the fitness field, and are quite likely to spend part of their colossal earnings on a staff member dedicated to helping them stay in admirable physical condition.

Inexorable math

Back in the day, it was Dr. Tim Lobstein, spokesperson for the World Obesity Foundation, who said it best: “Fat children are an investment in future sales.” Here at home, just like everywhere, obviously, every seller’s profit comes at some buyer’s expense. In our case, it was American parents and institutions — everybody who ever bought a doughnut or a burger for a child — who have paid the price.

Of course, by now, many of those overweight young people have taken over the responsibility for paying their own food bills, while in the meantime, all the dire predictions have come true.

Another dimension

In world news, massive attention has been paid lately to both the known and suspected illegal and shameful interference with children, carried out by wealthy and well-known international Important People. Meanwhile, all this time, right in front of our noses, it is totally true and inescapably obvious that children have been perfectly trained and impeccably groomed in another dimension of human behavior. Exactly as intended and predicted, the chunky cherubs of yesteryear have grown into a nation of obedient consumers of empty calories, flashy colors, and harmful, revolting additives.

The cost of obesity to society as a whole is a topic not easy to let go of. For most Americans, every dollar counts, whoever it is spent by and whatever it is spent on. We may disagree on the specifics, but ultimately, a very great majority of people agree on one basic principle: A lot of money is being spent on certain things, which they believe should be spent on something else instead.

Footnote

Incidentally, is there something perversely unmagical about the number 5? As a recent post pointed out,

The total number of babies born in the USA in a year is around 3.6 million. Since about one in five will be obese, that means around 720,000 unhappy fat kids.

In other words, each year, more than half a million young Americans mature into the ranks of the obese youth. In a strange, historically unprecedented twist of fate, a large percentage of young people are physically unfit and, in case the country might need to be defended, ineligible to join the armed forces.

Another unfortunate appearance of the numeral was spotted recently and will be explored further: “Obese Children Face Nearly 5-Fold Higher Risk of Fractures, Study Finds.”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Open Clipart-Vectors/Pixabay

CDC: Child and Teen Obesity at Record High

Tatyana Meshcheryakova March 4, 2026 No Comments

Childhood obesity in the United States has reached a troubling new milestone. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one in five children and teenagers now live with obesity. This is the highest rate ever recorded.

For public health experts, the numbers are not just statistics. They represent a generation at heightened risk for chronic disease and long-term health complications.

The CDC’s latest data, drawn from the long-running National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), show that between 2021 and 2023, 21.1% of U.S. youth ages 2 to 19 had obesity. By comparison, in the early 1970s (1971–1974), that figure stood at just 5.2%.

“This is exceptionally concerning,” said Dr. David Ludwig, professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Decades ago, Ludwig noted, obesity in children was rare: about one in 20. “And now we’re looking at one in five children with obesity,” he said. Even more alarming: 7% of children now live with severe obesity, up from just 1% roughly 50 years ago.

For a brief period in the early 2010s, there appeared to be progress — at least among the youngest children. Between 2009 and 2010, obesity rates among 2- to 5-year-olds were 12.1%. By 2013–2014, that number had dropped to 9.4%. Experts cautiously celebrated what seemed like a turning point.

But the optimism was short-lived. Today, obesity rates in that same age group have climbed to 14.9%.

Dr. Ludwig said:

We saw that dip and we all got excited thinking that we were beginning to turn the tide… In retrospect, that was more of a statistical aberration, more of a mirage than a true glimmer of hope because the trend overall has continued upward.

The reversal underscores how complex and entrenched the childhood obesity epidemic has become.

Interestingly, while childhood obesity continues to climb, adult obesity rates may be showing early signs of stabilization. In the most recent CDC survey (2021–2023), 40.3% of adults age 20 and older were classified as obese. That’s significantly higher than the 22.9% recorded between 1988 and 1994, but slightly lower than the peak of 42.4% seen in 2017–2018.

Dr. Justin Ryder, associate professor of surgery and pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, warned that past dips have sometimes been statistical blips rather than lasting trends. He said:

Could it just be the people who were sampled, or is it real? We won’t know until we have more data over time.

One factor that may be contributing to the stabilization in adults is the growing use of GLP-1 receptor agonists, a class of medications originally developed to treat Type 2 diabetes. These drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, helping regulate blood sugar and signal fullness to the brain. In recent years, several have become household names, including Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and more. While these medications are increasingly common among adults, pediatric use remains more limited and carefully regulated.

So, what will it take to reverse the trend in children? Experts say the answer depends on age.

Ages 2–5: Focus on early lifestyle interventions — healthy eating habits, reduced ultra-processed foods, and increased physical activity.

Ages 6–11: Lifestyle changes remain central, though some medications may be appropriate in certain cases.

Ages 12–19: Adolescents with obesity — nearly 23% in the latest survey — may meet criteria for intensive treatment, including medications or, in some cases, bariatric surgery.

Dr. Ryder emphasized the need to apply existing clinical practice guidelines more consistently for adolescents. He said:

I think the only way that we’re going to see a downward trend in that number is if we take that adolescent group […] and actually start to apply the clinical practice guidelines and treat those kids seriously.

The contrast between potentially stabilizing adult obesity rates and record-high childhood obesity underscores a sobering reality: Prevention efforts may be arriving too late for many children. When obesity begins in childhood, it often persists into adulthood, compounding health risks over decades.

The CDC’s latest data represent more than a statistical benchmark. They serve as a warning that without sustained, multi-layered efforts, spanning families, schools, healthcare systems, and public policy, the upward trajectory is unlikely to reverse on its own.

For now, the numbers are clear: One in five American children is living with obesity. Whether this becomes a permanent feature of modern health — or a turning point that sparks renewed action — remains to be seen.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Rising childhood obesity ‘exceptionally concerning,’ says expert,” Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, 2/26/26
Source: “US child, teen obesity rates reach record high while adult trends appear to slow, CDC report finds,” ABC News, 2/24/26
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What Is Childhood Obesity’s Price Tag?

Pat Hartman March 3, 2026 No Comments

No regular visitor to this blog is surprised to learn that there is still more to be said about the cost of obesity to our society as a whole. We all end up paying for it in some way, shape, or form. It is important to keep making this point — but not to ignite in people the sort of anger that hangs in the atmosphere, all too ready to descend upon those who are considered unacceptable in some way, by those who are too ready to judge.

Childhood Obesity News was created because of a deeply felt need to help prevent any child from experiencing extreme unhappiness in her or his early years. Of course — and this fact is indisputable — obesity is not the most glaringly obvious potential cause of childhood misery — certainly not as noticeable as a cleft palate, for instance. And in the United States, that problem is usually repaired so early that the child does not even retain a memory of it.

But for the sake of a thought experiment, we pretend for a moment that the birth defect is left unrepaired, and pick some arbitrary numbers just to make a point. Let’s propose that the emotional cost of going through childhood with such a visible deformity is a whopping 72 Misery Units. During a year in America, around 2,500 children are born with a cleft lip and/or palate. So that would be 180,000 Misery Units collectively apportioned to all of them.

Another factor enters the picture

In that same year, about one in five of all babies born will spend their childhoods being obese. But compared to facial disfigurement, that is a relatively mild level of unhappiness — call it 8 Misery Units.

For an individual child, a cleft palate left unrepaired would undoubtedly cause a ton of misery, compared to the unhappiness experienced by one of the obese kids. That would add up to an extreme amount of grief, which society as a whole should definitely put its best efforts toward fixing. But, to add another factor into the reckoning, for every facially disfigured child born in any given year, nearly 300 are born who will join the childhood obesity ranks.

The total number of babies born in the USA in a year is around 3.6 million. Since about one in five will be obese, that means around 720,000 unhappy fat kids. In other words, approximately 300 obese children for each facially disfigured child.

And even at the relatively low number of only 8 Misery Units apiece, the childhood obesity grand total would still multiply out to a truly impressive 5,760,000 Misery Units… against a measly 180,000 Misery Units among the kids who need plastic surgery. By that standard, childhood obesity is by far the more devastating problem.

The point

Most obese children will at some point — hopefully not too often — experience unpleasant (though relatively civilized) reactions from grownups. Probably, the average overweight young teenager will be on the receiving end of heedlessly uninhibited reactions from, and interactions with, their fellow juvenile acquaintances. And strangers.

Then, most of these youngsters will probably go on to become obese older teenagers, who might seek to assuage their unhappiness by adopting or substituting new bad alcohol or drug habits for the old bad eating habits. If their obesity is beyond what the average American is willing to overlook, finding a job might be difficult. When an obese young adult decides to marry and settle down, there is a strong likelihood that the partner will also be obese, and then, an even stronger probability that the offspring of that union will also be obese.

Point being, even if the average case of obesity is nowhere near as harrowing as an amputated limb or visible burn scar or tragically ineradicable birthmark; even though an individual case of obesity might imaginatively be called a mere 8 Misery Unit problem, there are so many of them that society as a whole is weighed down by the cost of all those amassed, accumulated Misery Units. And incidentally, a lot of the cases involve monetary costs which, we pointedly mention again, are paid by society as a whole.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

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Distribution of Debt

Pat Hartman February 26, 2026 No Comments

A recent post raised the subject of how the expenses of obesity tend to be distributed throughout the entire society. A glaring example is the very noticeable cost of medical facilities, which need enormous buildings to house them, and quite a lot of space for parking lots, and huge amounts of power to keep the lights on 24/7, as well as to run all the complicated machinery.

Whether on its own premises or outsourced, a hospital must have an infallible laundry service. Even when administered by a charitable organization, this institution has to operate as a business, taking into consideration such needs as insurance and adequate staffing in every department.

It has to maintain a fleet of ambulances and other vehicles. It must stock significant amounts of supplies, from pencils and rolls of tape to bottles of vital infusions, to food for the patients, staff, and visitors. For obvious safety reasons, many items used in hospitals, like the business end of a hypodermic needle, are single-use, requiring efficient and infallible means of disposal. This is especially true of hazardous waste like used dressings (aka bandages), which, if not properly segregated from regular garbage and conscientiously destroyed, could spread the very diseases which hospitals are supposed to defeat.

A bigger size means a higher price

With large numbers of large patients, more money is necessary to keep the place functioning. The needed equipment, whether bought or rented, has to be on the premises. If not, it will need to be obtained quickly, which usually means extra expense. Or maybe because of that lack, the patient must be transferred and transported to a different facility, for a hefty price.

Because the hospital needs a piece of industrial-strength equipment designed to lift a morbidly obese patient from one surface and set that patient down undamaged on another surface, the bills of everyone in the institution must rise incrementally. The same inflexible economic rule applies to every other item added to the inventory to accommodate overweight patients, and for each obesity specialist who needs to be hired, and so on.

An awe-inspiring example

Depending on attachments and degree of customization, a hospital “bariatric bed” designed to hold someone weighing up to 600 pounds can be had for around $1,300 to $3,300 (and north of that figure). A decade ago, such a specialized item might, like some other commodities, have been proudly, truthfully, and crudely described as “a fat investment opportunity.”

From here and there

A typical paper in the field summarizes the cost of treating childhood obesity in Brazil over the decade ending in August of 2022, noting that such expenses encompass several categories including direct medical costs, procedures, inpatient hospital stays of whatever length, outpatient doctor visits, medications, preparations (like normal saline) that are not prescription drugs but nevertheless must be paid for, and miscellaneous.

Analysts then attempt to grasp the implications their statistics present, and apply the new knowledge to not only gain a more accurate understanding of the overall situation, but to update official policy according to the results of their calculations. Some of the pertinent answers they seek include an understanding of what causes regional differences in prices, how hospitalization costs are calculated, and what this says about the overall policies.

Elsewhere

A more recent report, this one from Greece, encompassed the total burden imposed by obesity on that country’s economy in the year 2024. Both direct and indirect costs were calculated, in what the author characterizes as “a societal perspective.” The amount attributable to obesity was found to be 4.92 billion euros (almost 5 billion dollars), which was equivalent to 2.07% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product for that year. The author summarized,

Obesity imposes a considerable economic burden on Greece, threatening the sustainability of the healthcare system and broader social well-being. Immediate and drastic coordinated, multisectoral, and multidisciplinary strategies are needed to curb the prevalence and fiscal impact of obesity.

At approximately the same time, this was going on in the USA, as told by Newsweek. About one out of every five children (almost 15 million altogether) fell into the obese category, most of them being from racial minorities and low-income families. This came as no surprise to anyone who had been paying attention to their unequal access to healthful foods, safe recreational spaces, or adequate medical care. Of course, COVID-19 played a role, as children experienced a rate of annual weight gain nearly double that of the pre-pandemic years.

Naturally, all of this costs the American healthcare system a lot more than would have been the case if childhood obesity were not so widespread.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “A fat investment opportunity,” Moneyweb.co.za, 04/16/15
Source: “Amount Spent Per Hospitalization For Childhood Obesity In The Years 2012 To August 2022 In Brazil — Epidemiological Review,” Typeset.io, 03/02/23
Source: “The Economic Cost of Obesity: A Cost-of-Illness Study in Greece,” Springer.com/ 08/27/25
Source: “’Extremely Severe’ Obesity on the Rise in US Children—Study,” Newsweek.com, 07/20/25
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Childhood Obesity Treatment Gap

Tatyana Meshcheryakova February 25, 2026 No Comments

Childhood obesity continues to rise at an alarming rate in the United States, mirroring trends seen in adults but with even more concerning long-term implications. Today, more than 150 million Americans are living with obesity, including roughly 15 million children. While most people recognize that obesity is linked to serious conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and sleep apnea, fewer realize that these illnesses are increasingly affecting younger populations.

One of the most troubling aspects of obesity is that its impact compounds over time. The longer the body carries excess weight, the greater the cumulative stress placed on organs, metabolism, and overall health. When obesity begins in childhood, that timeline of exposure becomes significantly longer — often leading to more severe complications in adulthood.

Evan P. Nadler, M.D., the founder of ProCare Consultants and ProCare TeleHealth, penned an article for Clinical Leader, providing his take on why excluding children from clinical trials might present obstacles in the proper treatment of childhood obesity with weight loss drugs.

He wrote:

With most diseases, the longer you have it, the worse it gets. Obesity is no different. The damage is cumulative. It’s not just about how much you weigh — it’s about how long your body has been exposed to that weight. So one would think that the imperative to find solutions for childhood obesity would be front and center for those who are involved in clinical research involving the next generation of anti-obesity medicines. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.

Despite this urgency, children remain largely underrepresented in the rapidly advancing field of anti-obesity drug development.

The landscape of obesity treatment has changed dramatically in recent years. Breakthrough medications have transformed how clinicians approach weight management, offering new hope for patients who previously had limited options.

Recent approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have brought injectable treatments such as semaglutide and tirzepatide into mainstream medical practice, with studies showing substantial weight loss outcomes. Researchers are also developing oral versions of these medications, along with next-generation therapies like orforglipron, maritide, and retatrutide.

Some of these emerging treatments target multiple metabolic pathways at once. In clinical trials, triple-receptor therapies have demonstrated weight-loss results comparable to bariatric surgery — an outcome that was nearly unimaginable just a decade ago.

However, most of these advancements are focused on adult populations. Currently, only a limited number of GLP-1–based medications are approved for adolescents ages 12 and older. Even then, options remain restricted, and some require daily injections, which can be difficult for younger patients to maintain. Meanwhile, several promising drugs remain years away from pediatric approval.

Why children are often left out of clinical trials

A major reason for the treatment gap lies in how clinical trials are structured. Pharmaceutical companies typically complete adult trials first before expanding research into pediatric populations. While safety considerations play a role, regulatory frameworks also contribute to delays.

In the United States, pediatric studies are encouraged but not always required early in the drug development process. Companies may postpone these trials until adult approvals are secured, which often results in multi-year delays before children gain access to new therapies.

This delay can create arbitrary access gaps. For example, a medication approved for an 18-year-old may not be available for a 17-year-old — even though the medical condition is essentially identical.

Because adult markets are larger and more profitable, pediatric studies are often deprioritized. Unfortunately, this approach overlooks the long-term health benefits of early intervention.

How Europe takes a different approach

Regulatory policies differ internationally. Within the European Union, pharmaceutical companies must submit a Pediatric Investigation Plan before completing adult trials for new medications. While the pediatric studies themselves may still occur later, the requirement ensures that children are part of the development strategy from the beginning. This structured planning process has resulted in more consistent pediatric drug research compared to the U.S., where early inclusion is often optional.

Despite groundbreaking progress in obesity pharmacotherapy, many of the newest medications still lack clear pediatric development timelines. Public regulatory databases show limited planning for children in several ongoing drug pipelines, reinforcing concerns that young patients may wait years before benefiting from new therapies.

The contrast is striking. Innovation is accelerating, yet access remains uneven.

The growing childhood obesity crisis highlights the need for a shift in how treatments are developed and approved. Early intervention — whether through lifestyle programs, behavioral care, or medical therapy — can dramatically change long-term health outcomes.

As new anti-obesity medications continue to reshape treatment possibilities, experts increasingly call for regulatory reforms that prioritize pediatric inclusion from the start. Without that change, millions of children may remain on the sidelines of one of the most significant medical advancements in metabolic health.

Dr. Nadler wrote:

So what does this all mean for children with obesity in the U.S.? Despite all the GLP-1- development, children are not part of the gameplan… The time has come for the FDA to rethink how it approaches clinical trials in children for the sake of the 15 million children with obesity…

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Problem With Excluding Children From GLP-1 Trials In The U.S.,” Clinical Leader, 2/19/26
Source: “Obesity and Overweight: Developing Drugs and Biological Products for Weight Reduction,” FDA, January 2025
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Is It All About Money?

Pat Hartman February 24, 2026 No Comments

Each day, the American public is greeted by the news that yet another product or service is becoming either painfully expensive or increasingly impossible to obtain at any price. Periodically, we are met with unwelcome surprises. For example, it has recently come to the world’s attention that to build and maintain the hardware needed for immense Artificial Intelligence citadels will raise the price of both water and electricity to levels terrifying to contemplate.

At the same time, the astute reader will have noticed that certain words occur frequently in the titles and posts here at Childhood Obesity News. Those words are “cost” and “price,” along with several other appropriate synonyms, adjectival variants, and even polite euphemisms.

This site has discussed individual costs, institutional costs, societal costs, financial costs, psychological costs, emotional costs, and more; all paid directly or indirectly by the parents of obese children and, of course, by the kids themselves.

The crux of the matter

Here is the problem. “On the ground,” as the expression goes, those different types and degrees of prices are actually paid by pretty much everybody (except for a tiny percentage of villains who design and maintain the system, and profit from it). Among the vast majority of the population, many varieties of prices are paid.

The point being pursued here is that the vast majority can also jolly well decide to do something about it. One way or another, we really all need to take some responsibility. This does not mean trying to make laws to control the behavior of individuals. (They tend not to react well, so trying is usually a waste of energy.)

However, corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. We humans, especially the ones who hope to prevent childhood obesity, can take it upon ourselves to discipline manufacturers. Among other points of contention, they need to stop adding certain ingredients to their purportedly edible products.

We are well within our rights to insist that corporations behave themselves. We could easily take some of the energy we use to tsk-tsk at the parents of overweight children, and apply it to curbing the worst instincts of our corporate oppressors.

Oh, those prices

The vast majority of the population consists of many more types than just obese children and their responsible adults. Directly or indirectly, recognizably or covertly, one way or another, all sorts of prices are paid — and not just by these children and their parents but, eventually, by everybody who belongs to the whole society — yes, even the skinny kids and the childless adults. Still, maybe we could recognize the futility of picking on obese people and cut them a break. A lot of that energy could be constructively redirected.

Let’s back up for a minute and glance at a very recent item of medical news, which says,

Researchers from the UK and Finland said that people with obesity were seen to have a higher risk of being hospitalised or dying due to SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the venerated journal The Lancet, obese people may be as much as 70% more apt to be hospitalized for — and even die of — an infectious disease like pneumonia, flu, or COVID-19. The professionals behind the study ask readers to exercise caution before generalizing, because, of course, many factors are involved.

No scientists want the public to read more into their published work than what they intentionally placed there. Still, the study did encompass well over half a million subjects and…

“As obesity rates are expected to rise globally, so will the number of deaths and hospitalisations from infectious diseases linked to obesity,” author Solja Nyberg, from the University of Helsinki in Finland, said.

Like so many other studies, this one also demonstrated the futility of being mean to obese people, who may not even be around long enough to feel the effects of that wasted negative energy.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Data centers for AI use huge amounts of electricity, water, driving up costs and climate concerns,” CBSNews.com, 02/13/26
Source: “ Obesity Raises Risk Of Hospitalisation, Death From Infections By 70%: Study,” NDTV.com, 02/11/26
Image by Peggy_Marco/Pixabay

Childhood Obesity on the Brain

Pat Hartman February 19, 2026 No Comments

An impartial observer from some other solar system, sent to garner facts about Earthlings, would eventually run up against the dislike of body fat that prevails among so many people in so many cultures. To the interplanetary visitors, the answer, including whether there even needs to be an answer, might seem obvious: “Don’t become obese.”

The scholar from afar would do the equivalent of scratching their head, musing… How much sheer brain power, how many thousand cumulative years of academic study have been devoted to dwelling on this mystery? How many lab animals have been sacrificed in pursuit of weight-loss knowledge?

The impulse to highlight a certain article published by Dr. Pretlow is irresistible. With every passing year, it becomes more demonstrable that the issues surrounding obesity and body image can impact a person in ways that are not only difficult for a non-professional observer to imagine but which, in some cases, lead to appalling results.

The human condition

It is not so very hard to change or disguise skin color, at least for the short term. Making the hair look different is almost laughably simple. To appear as a member of the opposite sex has largely been possible since people started wearing clothes. It may not be easy, or officially approved, but in most societies throughout history, it has been doable. As time goes on, that potentiality has grown for at least a percentage of folk, depending mostly on financial capability.

But… and it’s a big butt…

Okay, that is a lousy pun. Moving on… A person can be made to look taller, but to appear shorter requires some skillful trickery. A person can so easily be made to look corpulent, but to achieve the illusion of slimness is incontestably a challenge, involving a whole different sort of visual phenomenon. To achieve the illusion of a smaller body requires considerable effort — training in visual aesthetics, access to specialized supplies and equipment, and good lighting.

The sad fact is, it’s pretty much a one-way trick. To appear bigger and fatter is almost infinitely possible, depending only on how many pillows a person could tie on with ropes, or how clever a balloon-suit they could hide themselves in before inflating it and hoping not to sit on any sharp object.

All of which only emphasizes how relatively impossible it is to go the other way. Sure, optical illusion and an excellent tailor can do a lot to disguise a hefty physique. And let’s not start in on the possibilities offered by photoshopping and AI, which can work their seeming magic to portray a human as gigantic or svelte. Messing with images is so easy and obvious, it doesn’t even really belong in a serious discussion like this.

The logical answer

The obvious solution is to simply not be so big! Eat less than is needed. Use up a lot of energy. It will take time, and the task will be difficult for various reasons, but of all potential metamorphoses, it seems, in theory, at least, to be the most possible. Theoretically, to become a person with a smaller body ought to be the easiest transition of all.

So then, what is the problem? What is wrong with you and me and millions of overweight Earthlings who just can’t get it together and shed the pounds? How many thousands of hours of thought and experimentation have been utilized over the years to figure this out? How many words and bytes have we utilized in trying to first grasp the problem at all, and then to explain it to others?

More or less than required to figure out transportation without fossil fuels? More or less than has been spent trying to avoid (or facilitate) nuclear annihilation? Why is slimming down a human body such an imposing, vast, difficult, problematic, wearisome chore?

Groping for clarity

We could quote some dismal and/or shocking statistics about Obesity, Growth Of, but that would be needlessly boring. One more question comes to mind, a major one, and basically the most important reason for all this soul-searching. Just exactly how badly does this whole subject of weight damage young people who, truth be told, have quite a lot of other troublesome issues to deal with? (It is tempting to go with a colloquial expression there, like “These poor kids have too much on their plates already.” But, no.)

Now, veering back to the original puzzling topics that inspired the discussion, the entire point here was to pose yet another question. Despite the struggle to avoid and suppress obesity having been spectacularly unproductive so far, maybe some kind of a step back could be taken. Possibly, we could temporarily, just as an experiment, set aside many of the thoughts we have been accustomed to holding onto, about these matters.

Of course, many visitors here have already read the work authored by Robert Pretlow and Suzette Glasner, titled “Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment.” For those who are familiar and for newer readers too, some interesting notions dwell, awaiting discovery, in its pages. In particular, interested professionals and laypersons alike might meet up with ideas that could blossom into useful revelations and actual change.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment,” NIH.gov, June 2022
Image by geralt/Pixabay

Study: Reducing Parent Stress May Help Prevent Childhood Obesity

Come At It Sideways

Double duty

More Obesity-Associated Dangers and Costs

Speaking of births…

What, More Costs?

Inexorable math

Another dimension

Footnote

CDC: Child and Teen Obesity at Record High

What Is Childhood Obesity’s Price Tag?

Another factor enters the picture

The point

Distribution of Debt

A bigger size means a higher price

An awe-inspiring example

From here and there

Elsewhere

Childhood Obesity Treatment Gap

Why children are often left out of clinical trials

How Europe takes a different approach

Is It All About Money?

The crux of the matter

Oh, those prices

Childhood Obesity on the Brain

The human condition

But… and it’s a big butt…

The logical answer

Groping for clarity

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

The Book

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Presentations