Three-year-old dies from obesity

This story at the BBC is really scary, but not too surprising. Three-year-old dies from obesity.

Dr Sheila McKenzie, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal London, told the Health Select Committee: “In the past two years one child at the age of three has died of heart failure secondary to extreme obesity.”

The shocking case was highlighted in a scathing report on obesity by MPs which says too little has been done to tackle the epidemic.

It was only a matter of time…

16 thoughts on “Three-year-old dies from obesity

  1. Hey Mike,

    That is absolutely frightening. I just saw a movie called “Super Size Me” which shows a man putting himself through 30 days of McDonalds meals.

    He attributes a part of our increasing obesity problem to the fact that we eat so poorly. Dr. Nigel Meadows was quoted in the article as saying, “Some may say the parents are responsible, but if a child is demanding food it can be very difficult to refuse it.”

    C’mon. That’s a cop out. You can feed a child food that has proven to move through the digestive system quickly and cleanly. I suspect (admittedly, without knowing the facts) that the food that made the child obese was not the healthiest food to begin with.

    In the end, especially in the case of a child’s death due to obesity, the responsibility lays primarily with those who have sworn to care for the child.

    Tim

  2. Apparently, this story turned out to be false. Yes, the child did die extremely overweight but it had a major problem with its endocrine system (glands) and could not survive anyway. The obesity was not due to over-eating. The doctors are annoyed that the story was used politically. (the BBC has more details)

  3. There are thousands of websites where you can read about calorie-controlled diets. There are thousands of doctors and nutritionists and dieticians who will advise you to reduce calories or fat or carbohydrates or take exercise in order to reduce weight. There are many diets you can try and probably have tried, and yet you are heavier now than before you started dieting.

    Your problem may be sensitivity to salt. Salt can cause obesity and health problems in vulnerable people.

    In recent years people have been eating more convenience foods and these are high in salt. Excess salt intake can cause water retention and that means excess weight because water is heavy. By eating less salt(sodium) you can lose some of this excess water and so lose weight.

    Over 90% of people who lose weight by following a ‘slimming’ diet regain all the weight they have lost – and more! – Yet EVERYONE who reduces their salt intake loses weight.

    Forget about counting calories!

    So that’s NO DIETING! – NO HUNGER! – NO EXERCISE! – NO COST! – NO DRUGS! – NO ADVERSE SIDE-EFFECTS!

    So – NO EXCUSES! –

    Lose weight by eating less salt! – Go on! – TRY IT!

    For more information and advice on this subject visit http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

  4. Margaret, I am going to leave your comment here though it is no more than a blatent advert for your site. However, as your site seems to be legitimate and not trying to sell anything I will let it remain.
    I do though disagree with some of what you say. I do not believe you can lose weight and keep it off without exercise. I have reduced my fat intake for most of the last 12 months (for medical not dietary reasons), as well as trying to eat more healthily. But I have also been exercising. In my case I have been cycling, steadily building up to 50 miles per week. I do not know how much weight I have lost if any (I do not weigh myself), but I have lost at least four inches from my waist-line. I am much fitter than I was 18 months ago, and do not believe that I will lose all the benefit (gain inches) in any short time if I were to stop.

  5. Mike

    I say again – TRY what I advise! – I lost 51 pounds by reducing – and eventually excluding – all avoidable sodium. – That is ALL I did. – I actually ate more fat and more calories while I was losing the weight! – I just lost the weight as if by magic. – So has everyone else who has taken my advice seriously and really concentrated on reducing their salt intake. – That, of course, is why I started my website. – So that other people could benefit in the same way. It is absolutely altruistic.
    I’m pleased you are leaving my comment. It gives others a chance to try something that can ONLY benefit their health and well-being.
    Why don’t you TRY it?

  6. OR you could just not drink water, doing that you can lose 10 pounds in a two days. But no-ones going to do that, so seriously you can cut down salt but don’t bother if your going to eat MORE fat and conciously eat more calories. Exercise and be careful and moderate what you eat

  7. No, Katie.

    Not drinking will rapidly cause illness and, of course, intolerable thirst. It would not make you less obese; it would make you ill.

    When you cut down on salt/sodium, you lose excess sodium and water FROM YOUR BLOOD VESSELS, HELD THERE BY THE SODIUM.

    Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. – See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7423/1085 for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! – Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. – dieting makes you fat.

    It is commonly accepted now that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. – Even the small proportion who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. – See http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1515455,00.html for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

    Cutting down on calories is an ineffective, potentially harmful way to try to lose weight. – Cutting down on salt is the SAFE, RELIABLE and RAPID way to lose excess weight.

  8. It’s a shame we don’t have the medical facts on this case. My work is with overweight children, so I watch a lot of these cases. Thanks for the article.

  9. I see more evidence every year that obesity prevents your body from recovering from illness however more importantly increases your chance of death at an ealier age than expected.

    “Analysis of the data showed that those who wanted to lose weight and succeeded were significantly more likely to die young than those who stayed fat.”

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