5 tips for talking to kids about their weight – CTV

Feb. 25, 2024

It is no secret that a growing percentage of Americans can be considered overweight or obese, and that includes children. The number of kids between the ages of 2 and 19 who can be categorized as obese has now grown to 20 per cent, or one in five.

“Essentially, from the 1970s to the ’90s, there was a huge increase in the number of kids who are considered to have obesity … too high a body weight for their own good,” Dr. Jack Yanovski, a pediatric endocrinologist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast Chasing Life.

With children, doctors define obesity a bit differently than they do with adults. Children’s body mass index — imperfect as the measurement is — is calculated in the same way (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared), but the threshold for obesity is not a BMI of 30 or above.

Read more: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/5-tips-for-talking-to-kids-about-their-weight-1.6782628