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Obesity

During the summer break recently, I saw some kids and was not only baffled but afraid for the up-coming generation with regard to my encounter. A particular girl, who couldn’t be older than 15 years – which, by the way, is many years younger than I am, was HUGE! Let’s just say, triple my size. All I could say at that point was “Dear Lord, what are we eating these days?” Obviously, being overweight and obese is no longer just an issue for adults, but kids as well. Nowadays, society is replete with ‘career moms’ who feed their children fast food on a regular basis, caring less what chemicals all these junk food contain despite reported health hazards. An example of such chemicals is Phthalate. Phthalates are a group of chemicals used to make plastics more flexible and harder to break. They are often called plasticizers. Some phthalates are used as solvents (dissolving agents) for other materials. They are used in hundreds of products, such as vinyl flooring, adhesives, detergents, lubricating oils, automotive plastics, plastic clothes (raincoats), and personal-care products (soaps, shampoos, hair sprays, and nail polishes).  They are also used widely in polyvinyl chloride plastics, which are used to make products such as plastic packaging film and sheets, garden hoses, inflatable toys, blood-storage containers, medical tubing, and some children’s toys. I know you may be asking how it relates to the topic at hand so here it is; people are exposed to phthalates by eating and drinking foods that have been in contact with containers and products containing phthalate. Children exposed to two chemicals commonly used in food packaging are more likely to be obese or show signs of diabetes precursors than those with lower exposure, new research suggests. Researchers found that urine levels of one type of phthalate, used to soften plastic, were tied to a higher risk of insulin resistance among teenagers. Based on data from the same large nutrition survey, another study group linked bisphenol A, or BPA – used to line aluminium cans – to obesity and larger waists in youth. “Clearly unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are the drivers of this epidemic, but increasingly environmental chemicals are being identified as possible contributors. Although the evidence about BPA and adverse health effects are not definitive, as a clinician, it is recommended that parents try to avoid BPA-containing plastics when possible to minimize their family’s exposure which includes having to avoid microwaving food in plastic containers, as this can lead to chemicals leaking into the food,” one of the researchers noted. Another researcher cautioned that urinary level of BPA and other chemicals may not say a lot about how much actually gets into children’s blood and tissues: “Everybody who does BPA studies uses the urine for a surrogate of exposure. It’s erroneous, because the urine is purely what the person took in that day in BPA. In order to know what exposure is you have to have the blood level of the chemical, as well as how quickly it breaks down in the blood.” Last year the United States Food and Drug Administration, FDA, banned BPA from baby bottles, but said there was not enough evidence for a more widespread ban. The FDA has not placed regulations on phthalates in food products yet. In recent times, we seem to be a lot more lackadaisical when it comes to our nutrition so everything and anything goes. But there are questions I would like you to ponder on; if it is so easy to eat any manner of food without recourse to ponder on its health implications, why is it that our mothers did not experiment with junk food? Why did they take the time to painstakingly prepare those delicious meals we still reminisce about? Most of all, should we subject our kids to these health risks even if though they may crave to eat junk food? And is this a good expression of parental care and love? Finding the right answers to the above questions and modifying the feeding habits in homes may help put an end to the trend of obesity in children. By Peace Pessu
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This article was first published on 21st August 2013 and updated on August 30th, 2013 at 8:02 am

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