Childhood Obesity

Patrick Quanten

“It’s getting worse!” You don’t have to tell me. I just need to look around and evidence is paraded right in front of my very eyes. I don’t need expensive study reports to tell me. I am not interested in exact percentages. It is simply obvious to anyone who cares to look.

Because it can’t be ignored, it is talked about in the media and in the medical profession. A lot. And in spite of the conversation, which has been going on now for the last three decades, the figures are continuing to worsen. And so is my own street observation. Maybe we should take a closer look at what is actually being said and considered. Maybe we will get a bit wiser that way.

Dr Clare Hambling, NHS National Clinical Director for Diabetes and Obesity (UK), said: “Obesity is one of the biggest threats to health in the UK – it affects every human organ system and can have a major impact on people’s lives. Obesity increases people’s risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, mental ill health and many other illnesses which can lead to shorter lives, or affect quality of life, with greater need for healthcare.”

So it is serious!

A report published by the National Health Service (UK) gives us these results:

In 2022, 15% of children aged 2 to 15 were living with obesity, and 27% were overweight or living with obesity. Differences between boys and girls were not statistically significant.

Now I am confused. There are twice as many young children that are overweight than obese children. I thought obesity meant ‘being overweight’! Luckily the World Health Organisation helps us out.

Overweight is a condition of excessive fat deposits.

Obesity is a chronic complex disease defined by excessive fat deposits that can impair health.

Right. So overweight is a condition of excessive fat, but obesity is a ‘disease’ of excessive fat. Clever. Especially as ‘disease’ is defined as ‘a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism’.

Good Lord, are we playing on words to hide something or to confuse the listener? But as the WHO is THE authority on health in the entire world, I think we let them explain the problem.

Overweight and obesity result from an imbalance of energy intake (diet) and energy expenditure (physical activity).

In most cases obesity is a multifactorial disease due to obesogenic environments, psycho-social factors and genetic variants. In a subgroup of patients, single major etiological factors can be identified (medications, diseases, immobilization, iatrogenic procedures, monogenic disease/genetic syndrome).

The obesogenic environment exacerbating the likelihood of obesity in individuals, populations and in different settings is related to structural factors limiting the availability of healthy sustainable food at locally affordable prices, lack of safe and easy physical mobility into the daily life of all people, and absence of adequate legal and regulatory environment.

At the same time, the lack of an effective health system response to identify excess weight gain and fat deposition in their early stages is aggravating the progression to obesity.

Do you understand this? I don’t blame you if you don’t. Let’s take it step by step and find simple words to try and put some meaning to the words and concepts of the WHO.

Overweight and obesity result from an imbalance of energy intake (diet) and energy expenditure (physical activity).

It’s an imbalance between two aspects of life: energy intake and energy expenditure. Energy intake apparently means diet. What you eat provides the system with energy. That is a bit narrow minded for such a wise organisation! It is well known that breathing provides far more energy for the system than food does. In fact, every cell in your body relies on oxygen for its activity, not on any specific food ingredients such as sugars or proteins. Furthermore, this narrow minded approach completely ignores the energy increase a person can experience through mental processes. Think about the boundless energy one finds when your life is in danger. I am sure you do not need to supply your system with extra food before you start running away from the hungry lion chasing you. And what about the general observation that being in love makes one lose one’s appetite. So, thriving on high energy frequencies is, by the biological system, preferred to eating, and the reason is that a lot more energy is gained from the high powered feeling than from food. The WHO picks the smallest contributor to the energy level of the person as the cause for a low energy intake, whilst at the same time ignoring the system’s capacity to generate boundless energy all by itself.

Energy expenditure is apparently due to physical activity. Indeed, one needs to burn energy in order to move the body. In fact, every cellular activity requires the burning of energy, not just muscle cells. It turns out that brain cells require tons more energy to create their complex actions, compared to muscle cells. And we know it. Having to use a lot of brain power to solve complex rational problems leaves us totally drained, from which recovery takes longer compared to any recovery from physical activity. Being stressed drains our energy reserves very quickly, emphasising the amount of energy expenditure of the emotional and psychological activity compared to physical activity. Once again the WHO picks the system with the least impact on energy expenditure to highlight a possible low expenditure of energy.

But why would an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure result in obesity in the first place? At least the Harvard School of Public Health investigated this question and formulated an answer: ‘The relation between physical activity energy expenditure and percentage body fat is not very strong in the general population.’ Research within the profession comes to this conclusion and at the same time the message from the profession remains the same: “you get fat when you eat more calories than you use in physical activity”. It makes me wonder why.

And then I notice something else that is strange with regards to the approach of the profession to the body metabolism. There are only three states in which matter can present itself: gas, liquid and solid. Hence, bodily waste products also come in those three states. To be more precise, there is gas waste, water soluble waste and fat soluble waste. What is strange about the approach of the medical profession to the metabolism of the body is the fact that fat soluble waste is mentioned nowhere. They talk about eliminating gasses and water. They do not emphasise the fact that waste products need to be put into an appropriate transport medium before it can be eliminated. So, gases need to be transported to the lungs, the skin and the intestine for elimination. This is done through the dissolution of the gases in the blood. Cellular waste that is water soluble is transported in water to be eliminated mainly through the kidneys, the skin (sweating), the nose and mouth (evaporation), and the intestine. The more water soluble waste that is produced by cellular activity the more water the body creates in order not to ‘poison’ the body tissues. It is a matter of diluting the toxic products, the waste material. When the body produces more water for the ‘holding’ of the products, the weight of the body increases. Fat soluble products are not soluble in water. They need to be emulsified before they can be transported in water.

A lot of the time, the liver is converting excess fats into a storable form, according to the Mayo Clinic. It’s putting the glycerol and fatty acid molecules back together into triglycerides or cholesterol — the two types of fat in your blood, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

So the more ‘fat’ waste products the cells produce, the higher the level of triglycerides and cholesterol within your blood. Hence, what the medical profession calls ‘a high cholesterol problem’ is in fact a waste product problem, the result of a consistently high cellular activity rate. It has no relation to your dietary intake of fat. In fact, trying to suppress the formation of cholesterol and triglycerides means you are reducing the liver conversion activity, which means that your system is no longer capable of clearing out, recycling, the fat waste products from cellular activity. So they accumulate elsewhere within various tissues.

Then it has to repackage them with proteins to form special little vehicles called lipoproteins that can carry the fats to where they need to go, Tewksbury explains. Colleen Tewksbury, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., is a senior research investigator and bariatric programme manager at Penn Medicine and president-elect of the Pennsylvania Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

On top of that, fats are the only macro that enlists the help of the lymphatic system to get into our cells. These lipoproteins are still a little too big to be directly absorbed into the bloodstream, Linsenmeyer says, so they actually enter the lymphatic system first. This network of vessels, which carries fluids throughout the body, runs pretty much parallel to the circulatory system and has special pathways that helps channel these bulky lipoproteins right into the bloodstream. - Whitney Linsenmeyer, Ph.D., R.D., is a nutrition and dietetics instructor in the Doisy College of Health Sciences at Saint Louis University and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Finally, these lipoproteins can chauffer the triglycerides throughout the circulatory system to their most common final destination: adipose (fat) cells throughout the body, known as adipose (fat) tissue, where energy is stored. (By the way, this is a good time to note that the relationship between dietary fat and body fat is so much more complex than “eating fat = gaining fat").

So excess fats, waste products from cellular activity, get processed and eventually stored in body fat. This means that cells working in a constantly high pressure environment will eventually lead to the gain of extra body fat, and thus extra body weight. This increase in fat body weight bares no relation to your dietary intake of fat.

Cells that have to work harder, burn more energy in order to finish normal business, produce more waste products, which in turn will overload the excretion organs and will require safe storage rooms within the body. Pressurised tissue from a pressurised person will lead to overweight. And the system of a person becomes permanently highly pressurised by living ‘a forced life’, a life that is not really compatible with the makeup of that person.

But let’s return to the WHO.

First of all, an ‘obesogenic’ environment is described as one where there is limited availability of healthy food, lack of personal financial funds and not enough space to move around in. In the first place, what is healthy food? Let’s ask the WHO.

The exact make-up of a diversified, balanced and healthy diet will vary depending on individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, lifestyle and degree of physical activity), cultural context, locally available foods and dietary customs. However, the basic principles of what constitutes a healthy diet remain the same.

So, a balanced and healthy diet varies greatly as a result of personal and environmental factors, but at the same time a healthy diet is always the same. What?

Advice on a healthy diet for infants and children is similar to that for adults.

A healthy diet includes the following:

Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils and beans), nuts and whole grains.
At least 400 g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day, excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.
Less than 10% of total energy intake from free sugars, which is equivalent to 50 g (or about 12 level teaspoons) for a person of healthy body weight consuming about 2000 calories per day, but ideally is less than 5% of total energy intake for additional health benefits. Free sugars are all sugars added to foods or drinks by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates.
Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats. Unsaturated fats (found in fish, avocado and nuts, and in sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oils) are preferable to saturated fats (found in fatty meat, butter, palm and coconut oil, cream, cheese, ghee and lard) and trans-fats of all kinds, including both industrially-produced trans-fats (found in baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods, such as frozen pizza, pies, cookies, biscuits, wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) and ruminant trans-fats (found in meat and dairy foods from ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and camels). It is suggested that the intake of saturated fats be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake. In particular, industrially-produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided.
Less than 5 g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day. Salt should be iodized.

In short, five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, a reduced sugar intake, a reduced heavier (read, more stable) fat intake, a reduced salt intake and don’t eat industry produced food. At the same time, food produced by the industry has become more prevalent in a society where people have less time to prepare meals, where normal food, now called ‘organic food’, has become too expensive, where the medical profession encourages industrial food additions for better health (vitamins and minerals), where, in general, refined and ‘cleaned up’ food products are claimed to be less dangerous to one’s health than natural, in season, foods.

Secondly, finances are, by the WHO, deemed to play an essential role in the lack of healthy food. This is very strange because nature produces all food for free, to anyone who is willing to harvest it. What is more, it is this natural food that humanity has survived on for a couple of million years without the need for money. How does money relate to food? Only when all food produced is gathered up by a corporation that then sells the food on to people. In other words, the creation of a middle man who wants to be paid for delivering an essential survival item to the same population it stole the item from in the first place. Food is free to all living organisms, except to human beings. And it is not nature that has created that exception!

Thirdly, the lack of safe and easy physical mobility plays a major part in the occurrence of obesity within a population. In that case I would like to ask the question as to who has organised society in a way that the only accommodation people can afford are apartments. Blocks of small cubby holes people live in nowadays. Indeed, there is very limited space for physical mobility. Furthermore, who would allow their children to play on the street or to ride their bikes in the fields in these modern sophisticated and cultured times? Can’t do it. Not safe at all. So who has organised a society that is so highly strung that there is so much tension amongst the population, which leaves no safe place beyond one’s locked front door?

Fourthly, what the hell does the WHO mean by absence of adequate legal and regulatory environment? Do we need more rules and laws concerning obesity? Do they want more regulatory powers over food production and food industry? That makes me cringe! Nature grows food for all living creatures. Who needs regulation for that? I fail to see any need for any interference by any human authority.

And then finally, what to think of etiological factors can be identified (medications, diseases, immobilization, iatrogenic procedures, monogenic disease/genetic syndrome) within the obesogenic environment? Let’s put this into simple wording. Factors that definitely increase obesity are medications, procedures used by the medical profession, diseases and reducing the movement of the body through the use of any immobilisation devise. Using mechanical means of moving around increases obesity. Using mechanical tools, in general, reduces the need for physical activity, for muscular movement. The medical profession increases obesity. Longstanding diseases, which create more waste products and debris, increase obesity. These things we are sure of. Nothing in there suggests that food plays any part in the creation of obesity.

Let’s round this up. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in April 2004 concluded: ‘The relation between physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) and percentage body fat (%BF) is not very strong in the general population.’

You decide that you are overweight simply by recognising that you have a few bulges that were not there before, combined with a figure you read of the scales, which you decide is ten kilograms more than a little while ago. You decide as a result of your observations. This is also why overweight adults very often decide they are not carrying ‘too much weight’, because, as they see it, they have always been like that. Doctors, however, decide for you that you are obese. And they require ‘proof’. They have decided what is right for you, where the line is drawn and where the danger to your health begins. What is the proof they have in order to make such a diagnosis, to turn overweight into obesity?

Measuring Body Fat Obesity, or body fatness, is calculated with various methods that range in accuracy and have limitations. Combining two or more methods, if possible, may better predict if someone has increased health risks related to weight.

So, ‘measuring’ body fatness is calculated. It is, in other words, a mathematical trick rather than a real measurement. And, as stated, they don’t use one ‘measurement’, they combine various methods to give themselves a better result, which in itself indicates that the correlation between their result and the reality is very poor. This seems more like an academic exercise than an observation!

One of the most widely used tools for estimating excess fat is the body mass index (BMI). BMI only measures excess weight, calculating a ratio of one’s weight to height.

So it’s an estimation of excess fat. It isn’t really ‘excess fat’, because in order for something to be excessive it needs to be ‘more than necessary’ (cfr. the dictionary). And who knows what is necessary? Your own system knows! There is no medical or other book that knows what your system needs right now and what is ‘normal’ to your system right now.

BMI does have several limitations. It can’t measure location of fat (e.g., belly fat is linked with greater health risks), muscle mass, or bone mass — all of which contribute to weight. One’s age, sex, race, and ethnicity can also affect BMI.

BMI doesn’t measure the location of fat in the body. As stated, it doesn’t ‘measure’ anything. It is a calculated figure that relates your height to your weight, and somebody has decided what a ‘good’ figure is and what a ‘bad’ figure is. A bad figure is then said to relate to a high fat content of the body, but they also admit that the ‘bad’ figure could relate to more muscle or bone tissue, and that it varies, unpredictably, with age, sex, race and ethnicity. In truth, their proof of obesity relies on a figure, obtained via a mathematical formula which they have invented, that can vary as a result of a great number of influences besides simply the amount of fat that the body contains. Truly a reliable proof of obesity, no?

For these reasons, BMI might be used as a screening tool for potential weight-related problems rather than to diagnose certain conditions. The accuracy of BMI in predicting health risk may vary across different individuals and racial and ethnic groups. Some populations have higher rates of obesity but that do not have corresponding rates of metabolic diseases like diabetes, and vice versa.

Ah, it is only a screening tool and it can only diagnose ‘potential’ problems. So nothing definite there then! No real diagnosis. Or the diagnosis doesn’t mean anything. Indeed, they do confirm that there is no direct correlation between their so called ‘measured’ proof and potential health problems. May I ask what the purpose of all of this palaver then really is?

Do you want to know how they get to the BMI figure that is supposed to tell you that you are obese AND that you are going to have specific health problems in the future?

How to determine BMI? Divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches. Divide the answer by your height in inches. Multiply the answer by 703.

The World Health Organization defines a “normal” weight as a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, “overweight or pre-obesity” as a BMI of 25.0 to 29.9, and “obesity” as a BMI of 30 or higher.

Makes sense to you? A logical and understandable mathematical formula, no? Can you clearly see how the end figure is a true reflexion of ‘being overweight’ of ‘being obese’?

Apparently, to the WHO, all human beings, irrespective of age, race, ethnicity, constitution, are alike. We all need the same things. We all function in the same way. If we take that as our basic belief, we can predict what is going to happen to the functioning of a human system given certain conditions.

What a shame life isn’t like that. What a shame that their starting point from which to approach human health is simply ludicrous, which makes all their assessments and predictions simple illusions. But hey, they are in charge, so they must be right, right?

Some researchers consider waist circumference to be a better measure of unhealthy body fat than BMI as it addresses visceral abdominal fat, which is associated with metabolic problems, inflammation, and insulin resistance. An increasing waist size can be an important “warning sign” that prompts a closer look at potentially unhealthy lifestyle habits. In people who do not have overweight, increasing waist size over time may be an even more telling warning sign of increased health risks than BMI alone.

Measuring the size of your waist may be a better indicator of future health problems than calculating the BMI. It may be, or it may not be. So they don’t know. It may be a warning sign. Indeed, but all physical signs of change are potential warning signs. Nose bleeds, headaches, diarrhoea, joint pain, dizziness, dry mouth, … Question then is, why in God’s name do you need to calculate a BMI?

One thing is for sure, the figure itself hides the magic trick behind it and makes it appear as something clever, which, of course, is the prerogative of the medical profession. It elevates them to keepers and protectors of health. They know the tricks. We don’t. They are the magicians. We are not.

According to an expert panel convened by the National Institutes of Health, a waist size larger than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women increases the chances of developing heart disease, cancer, or other chronic diseases.

Some believe that Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) may be a better indicator of risk than waist circumference alone, as waist size can vary based on body frame size, but a large study found that waist circumference and WHR were equally effective at predicting risk of death from heart disease, cancer, or any cause.

Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) is a simple, inexpensive screening tool that measures visceral abdominal fat. It has been supported by research to predict cardio-metabolic risk factors such as hypertension, and early death, even when BMI falls within a healthy range.

Although less commonly used, here are some other methods for measuring body fat. Skinfold Thickness Bioelectric Impedance (BIA), Underwater Weighing (Densitometry or Hydrostatic Weighing), Air-Displacement Plethysmography Dilution Method (Hydrometry), Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA), Computerized Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

Are you still there? Or are you standing on the scales muttering to yourself, “That’s a bit much!”? My goodness, how complicated can one make something? Everyone can look, see and ‘judge’. And if you are into using equipment, then scales and a tape measure will suffice.

But let’s not forget why being overweight is not a healthy option. It is a serious sign that waste is accumulating inside the body. When waste needs to be stored inside the body it means that the system is consistently functioning at a higher rate than it is comfortable with. More energy is being burned than necessary to maintain a normal functional level. This leaves behind more waste products, more than this system can clean up within the required timeframe. Now the system has to intervene. It has to start storing the waste products in a safe place. On the one hand it will produce more water and create pools of ‘dirty’ water within tissues like muscles and skin. The result is a relatively rapid weight gain. And secondly, it will fill up the fat cells with fat soluble waste to keep it out of harm’s way. Body weight will increase but at a slower rate.

The system works harder when it is under pressure. A system under pressure means that it is being asked to function in conditions that are not suited to its construction. This puts a lot of strain onto the system. Translated into human life terms, it means that this system is living a life that it is not really cut out for.

When young children are overweight, the environment they live in, the organisation of life around them, is not suited to their system. They require different things in order to be able to function more easily, more relaxed and more balanced. When the system is sending out warning signals at such an early age it doesn’t bode well for the future. It is seriously struggling right from the beginning, which means that, if life doesn’t change, it is bound to collapse sooner rather than later.

It is as simple as that. To Nature it is that simple. To human beings it is a huge problem, because we believe in the way we lead our lives. We are convinced that it is the best way. What does Nature know? Don’t listen to the signs it gives out. Push those aside. Suppress them. Ignore them. Keep believing in what another human being, a salesman from an industry, tells you. Allow them to overrule Nature while organising and controlling your life.

Adults have become less critical and less knowledgeable since allopathic medicine was forced upon them. Now it is the children’s turn. Apparently adult health is doing so well that we are begging for the same procedures to be implemented upon our children. As it is a good idea to make adults more toxic and obese, let’s not deny our children the same privileges.

Childhood obesity is a growing problem. The medical profession keeps us focused on diet and exercise, while the problem is caused by accumulation of waste. The more a life is removed from its natural balance, the more a life is pushed in an unnatural direction, the more unhinged it will become. The more it struggles to keep going, the more chance there is it will be showing signs of obesity. And an unhealthy child does not make a healthy adult.

And an industry, that delivers extreme wealth to its investors, has allowed and encouraged children to become unhealthy, because unhealthy children become unhealthy and needy adults, which is exactly where the industry makes its profit. Not by creating health, but by creating illness and dependency.

Do you still believe that anything that is being promoted by the medical profession is seriously aimed at making you healthy? Is your obese child healthier by following their recommendations and, God help us all, by their treatments?

Are you ready to reconsider?

Are you ready to accept that Nature knows more about life than any human does?

Are you ready to change?

Will you do it to save your child’s life?

December 2024

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