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Show I KEEPING HEALTHY Some Factors in Juvenile Overweight By Dr. James W. Barton TTTHILE THE PLAYMATES of the overweight youngster call him fatty and do not expect much of him in any group game, the youngster young-ster realizes that he is different, and begins to think inwardly about his excess fat. While he is thinking think-ing or worrying about it, he does the one thing that will increase his weight: he eats anytime and all the time, as this is his method of meeting his problem. In a study of over 500 obese children chil-dren in Stockholm, Sweden, it was found that there was not a single case due to an underactive thyroid gland and only 19 cases were due to any brain disturbance. The study of these 500 cases revealed re-vealed that obese children have obese parents more often than do normal children, while the more obese the child, the more frequent is parental obesity, especially in the mother. The study also revealed reveal-ed that the family tendency to obesity obes-ity could result from some constitutional con-stitutional factor or to just eating too much food, but that the hereditary heredi-tary and family factor definitely exists and is common; that chil dren from families with more than one obese member are apt to become be-come obese before the age of six, while those with onset of obesity after six years usually have less than two obese family members. An outstanding research worker states that the underlying cause of overweight in children is psychological psycho-logical and can be traced to early infancy when hostility, rejection or overanxiety on the part of the mother makes her concentrate on the value of food to her child "and so food assumes undue importance and acquires abnormal emotional significance. Food becomes the child's weapon against the increasing increas-ing adversities of life." The child keeps more to himself and overeating over-eating becomes a fixed habit. Fortunately, For-tunately, we all know many fat youngsters who are in the forefront, fore-front, doing their bit in all group athletic games; apparently they do not ever think about their fatness in their love for play. Generally, the obese child, whose obesity is due to overeating, not underactive glands, is usually alert and intelligent. |