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What Parents Need to Know
When Cindy Miller of Holly, Michigan, overhauled her family's diet and lifestyle in early 2007, the 38-year-old emergency room technician was doing it to protect her own health: She'd been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. But the biggest beneficiary was her son Austin. Then nine years old, Austin was less than five feet tall-yet weighed 170 pounds. He looks very different today.
Like the rest of the family, Austin traded in pizzas and candy bars for a diet heavy on fruit and vegetables. He runs and is on a wrestling team, and while he's shot up three inches, he's actually shed 45 pounds.
"In school they teach us about healthy choices, but kids are given bad food choices all the time," he says. "I don't miss all the stuff I used to eat, and I can swim faster and run faster now."
Austin's regimen just may save his life. Last year, a startling study showed that obese children and teens have arteries that look like those of an average 45-year-old. Kids with high cholesterol showed the same dismal changes. "Obesity in adolescents is a time bomb," says Juan Alejos, MD, a pediatric cardiologist at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. "By 2035 there will be 100,000 extra cases of adult heart disease because of obesity in today's children."
New guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) say that children who are obese or who have other risk factors such as a troublesome family history should get a cholesterol test by age ten -- and even urge doctors to consider statins for those most at risk if nothing else works. The recommendations stirred controversy, but the AAP insists it's not pushing pills for millions of kids.
"We simply wanted to draw attention to the rise in juvenile obesity," says Frank Greer, MD, who helped write the guidelines, "and to alert parents that poor health habits could be setting up their kids for early heart attacks or strokes." Lifestyle modifications are the best strategy, says Dr. Greer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. Statins should be considered only for kids with the worst combination of risk factors.
But parents need to make sure their kids eat right and stay active even if they're not overweight. Cheryl Bland knew that she and her husband, Lael, as well as their three kids -- daughters Kaela, 15, and India, 8, and their 12-year-old son, Branford -- couldn't take their health for granted. African Americans are twice as likely as Caucasians to suffer from coronary disease. Cheryl's mother died of a heart attack at age 47, when Cheryl was just 13. Lael, who's 47, comes from a family with stubbornly high cholesterol even though they're trim and get plenty of exercise.
So three years ago, the Blands decided to get healthy. "Our physician told us that if we wanted to see our kids graduate from high school, we had to do something," recalls Cheryl. They now scrutinize labels for hazards like trans fats and have switched from margarine to heart-healthy olive oil. Red meat's basically off their menu, never mind fast-food joints.
"At first, it was hard getting the kids on board," Cheryl says. "But after losing my mother at a very young age, I'm very up-front and honest with them. I choose my battles, but with diet and exercise, they know they have no choice."
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