When it comes to childhood obesity, a lot of factors affect decision making. Like the effectiveness, long-term side effects and also moral aspects. Childhood obesity and bariatric surgery also come with such ethical challenges. On the one hand, children are too young to give consent to treatment. On the other, sometimes it is the only option to prevent future obesity-related co-morbidities from arising, such as Sleep Apnea, Eating Disorders, Type 2 Diabetes, Depression and Hypertension.
How to diagnose childhood obesity?
In a regular health care checkup, the health care provider measures your child’s BMI and see where it falls on the BMI-for-age growth chart. This helps the doctor decide whether the child is overweight, underweight, or of an apt weight according to his age and height.
Using this growth chart, the doctor calculates a child’s percentile, comparing his weight to children of the same age and sex. Suppose a child is 70th percentile. This shows that compared with other children of the same age and gender, 70% have a lower BMI. Cut points on the growth chart helps in determining the severity of the weight problem:
- Overweight- BMI is between 85th and 94th percentile
- Obesity- BMI 95th percentile or above
- Severe Obesity- 99th percentile or above
Why weight loss surgery?
When it comes to childhood obesity and bariatric surgery, it is essential to keep open communication lines. A child’s examination by a health care provider determine which type of weight loss surgery procedure is needed. Though lifestyle and behavioural modifications might work on children to improve health, sometimes the situation is too aggressive, and weight loss surgery is the only way out.
Though bariatric surgery is commonly performed on adults, it is becoming widespread in children. And It has shown visible results in remission of many health problems. The only aim of the surgery is to provide the most benefit at the lowest risk.
Don’t forget that India is the second-largest country next to China for childhood obesity cases.
To understand and take advice on childhood obesity and bariatric surgery, call an expert on-6232012342.