Sometimes at Ukmedix News we feel that all this research is a waste of time

A newly released study using medical data from a government survey shows that over the last 30 years the number of American children and teenagers who are classified as being severely obese has multiplied by three.

The statistics show that now almost four percent of children between the ages of 2 and 19 have a BMI of 40+. In the last ten years the rise has been the quickest which is especially worrying because it shows that none of the obesity initiatives from the American government are actually working. The researchers also noted that children from low socio economic sections of society were suffering the most.

Dr. Joseph Skelton from Wake Forest University School of Medicine based in North Carolina who led the study commented on the big impact that obesity had on overall health and said that more must be done to prevent the children from suffering from chronic weight problems.

White children tended to be the least affected with only three percent severely obese whereas almost six percent of African American children suffered from the same.  Thirty years ago fewer than two percent of black children were severely obese.

Sometimes at Ukmedix News we feel that all this research is a waste of time because the conclusions regarding the increase in obesity are so obvious if you look around in America and also in the United Kingdom. We feel that government should not be financing research into whether children are becoming more overweight or not but should be using the money to finance ways of reducing the problem.

President Obama says that he wants to reduce the health care cost problem in the United States and the first area that he should be looking into is tackling the obesity problem from many different angles and backing it up with hard cash. In the long term the United States will get its money back tenfold.

This research was published in the medical journal Academic Pediatrics.