It really makes me sad when I see a child who is obese. Not one who is just a little overweight, but really obese. I'm sad because of the health problems that the child will face over their lifetime, unless they lose the weight.
So Health Affairs' paper on the Effects of Childhood Obesity on Hospital Care and Costs caught my attention and I read it. Some of the key and alarming findings include:
a near-doubling in hospitalizations with a diagnosis of obesity between 1999 and 2005 an increase in costs from $125.9 million to 237.6 million (in 2005 dollars) between 2001 and 2005 Medicaid appears to bear a large burden of hospitalizations for conditions that occur along with obesity (attention taxpayers!)
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Charges for hospitalizations with a primary diagnosis of obesity increased by 66.3 percent annually
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Among hospitalizations for which obesity was listed as a secondary diagnosis, affective disorders were the most frequent primary diagnoses, followed by pregnancy-associated conditions, asthma, and diabetes.
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Depressive disorder was the most common diagnosis in the "other mental disorders" category. Surprised?
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The leading diagnosis in the "other bone disorders" hospitalization group was slipped capital femoral epiphysis a well-known comorbidity of childhood obesity.
Teach children about good nutrition and exercise, set a good example and get help early, if needed. Don't stand by and allow a child to become significantly overweight or obese and burdened by health problems for the rest of their life.
Prevention is the real key to reducing costs as Dr. Erika Schwartz describes in her article true prevention. Until this happens, we are stuck with the costs of just keeping up with the numbers and severity of the chronically ill.
Your right, in-born sickness of children like obesity is difficult to handle. Not only obesity, children can also have an allergy which is also a lifetime sickness.
-Luke
Posted by: pediatric ENT | October 15, 2009 at 06:57 AM
It makes me sad too when i see obese children. i hope the government will do something about these because they are growing in numbers.
-Sam
Posted by: ENT doctor | November 05, 2009 at 12:47 AM