The Fat Kid in Gym Might Have a Heart Attack
A disturbing finding by scientists studying obesity in kids:
"The study, presented Tuesday at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans, found that the thickness of artery walls of children and teenagers who are obese or have high cholesterol resembled the thickness of artery walls of an average 45-year-old."
Egad! The good news is the doctors think that with proper diet and exercise the damage might be undone.
I don't get hyper about weight the way the rest of my family does. (They're all thin but for some reason they harp on weight all the time.) But this news is so upsetting. When I was a kid suffering through gym glass in grade school there were always one or two fat kids who bore the brunt of the others' disdain. One of my dear friends was a fat kid. Once, when we were all being weighed after gym, I comforted her when she was upset about her weight by explaining that "sweat makes you weigh more." (Scientifically unsound but I did not know that and I told her this in all earnestness, hoping to make her feel better.) Now I imagine the gym classes are full of portly students. I wonder if this means there is less teasing. Is it possible that gym is no longer the most despised class ever? Nah, gym always sucked and always will suck, especially for us intellectual types. At any rate, I wonder if it is possible that some of these fat kids will actually suffer hear attacks in dodgeball. Let's hope there is an AED machine handy and the gym teacher knows how to use it. I can't imagine a worse fate than to die in the middle of gym. A person's last experience should not be a dodge ball in the face.
"The study, presented Tuesday at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans, found that the thickness of artery walls of children and teenagers who are obese or have high cholesterol resembled the thickness of artery walls of an average 45-year-old."
Egad! The good news is the doctors think that with proper diet and exercise the damage might be undone.
I don't get hyper about weight the way the rest of my family does. (They're all thin but for some reason they harp on weight all the time.) But this news is so upsetting. When I was a kid suffering through gym glass in grade school there were always one or two fat kids who bore the brunt of the others' disdain. One of my dear friends was a fat kid. Once, when we were all being weighed after gym, I comforted her when she was upset about her weight by explaining that "sweat makes you weigh more." (Scientifically unsound but I did not know that and I told her this in all earnestness, hoping to make her feel better.) Now I imagine the gym classes are full of portly students. I wonder if this means there is less teasing. Is it possible that gym is no longer the most despised class ever? Nah, gym always sucked and always will suck, especially for us intellectual types. At any rate, I wonder if it is possible that some of these fat kids will actually suffer hear attacks in dodgeball. Let's hope there is an AED machine handy and the gym teacher knows how to use it. I can't imagine a worse fate than to die in the middle of gym. A person's last experience should not be a dodge ball in the face.