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- Title
Una mirada desde los servicios de salud a la nutrición de la niñez mexicana. II. Problemas emergentes: sobrepeso y obesidad.
- Authors
Flores-Huerta, Samuel; Pérez-Cuevas, Ricardo; Garduño-Espinosa, Juan; Reyes-Morales, Hortensia; Rodríguez-Ortega, Evelyne; Muñoz-Hernández, Onofre
- Abstract
Overweight and obesity are serious epidemic problems in the Mexican adult population, with eight out of ten presenting this condition. Furthermore, these are health problems associated with the first mortality causes in the country. In order to counteract this issue, it is important to know the main epidemiological and causal biological mechanisms, stressing the importance of their prevention from childhood. In this paper, body mass index and waist circumference are proposed as practical tools to identify and survey overweight and obesity among all ages. Energy balance disruption is suggested as the main factor for overweight and obesity acquisition, because energy intake is greater than energy expense. Moreover, the substitution of physical activities with sedentary urbanized amenities has enhanced this problem. The role of hereditary obesity factors is discussed to explain why children living in obesogenic environments do not develop overweight or obesity, focusing on why Mexican-American children have the highest prevalence of obesity in the USA. The role of overweight and obesity as components of the metabolic syndrome is also analyzed. This syndrome is the common path to short-term development of type-2 diabetes as well as to cardiovascular diseases. The difficulties of detecting such a syndrome at pediatric age are also emphasized, especially when using the same adult parameters. Finally, considering the huge magnitude of obesity and overweight in our country and the therapeutic difficulty of reverting weight gain, prevention is proposed as the best alternative solution for this problem.
- Subjects
OVERWEIGHT persons; OBESITY; METABOLIC disorders; BODY mass index; DIABETES
- Publication
Boletín Médico del Hospital Infantil de México, 2007, Vol 64, Issue 6, p399
- ISSN
0539-6115
- Publication type
Article