Childhood Obesity A Global Epidemic - 1474 Words

Introduction In recent decades childhood obesity has become a global epidemic. Globally it is estimated that around 40-50 million children are obese. In the United States the amount of school-age children who are considered obese has risen from 6% in 1973 to 31% in 2009 (3). In children, obesity is defined as a child’s height and weight being at or over the 95th percentile (1). Childhood obesity can lead to a large amount of adverse consequences, including: low self-esteem, asthma, cancer, premature mortality, and type 2 diabetes (3). Once thought to be a disease that only affected adults who were overweight or obese a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes has become increasingly common in school-age children (3). In the past, school-age children†¦show more content†¦Another way that type 2, or non-insulin dependent diabetes can be treated is through the use of a medication called metformin (5). Metformin has French Lilac as an active ingredient, which was used in medieval Eur ope in the treatment diabetics. Metformin acts primarily in the liver to decrease the hepatic glucose output by sensitizing the liver to insulin (3). It also is able to increase the amount of glucagon-like peptide (3), which is a hormone stimulates the release of insulin and suppresses appetite, in both diabetic and non-diabetic adults (6). One side effect of metformin that can greatly benefit those with type 2 diabetes is that users have a tendency to lose weight since the medication is able to fix the overabundance of insulin in the bloodstream that the desensitized insulin receptors do not receive. Studies have shown that unlike insulin glargine, metformin has the potential to reduce both the cancer-causing instances of genetic mutation and the associated cellular damage (5). It can interfere with the growth of tumors both directly and indirectly (2); directly by inhibiting the growth of cancer cells,