Recognizing obesity as soon as your child is born

01:01 PM PDT on Thursday, June 24, 2004

By JEAN ENERSEN / KING 5 News

KING At the Odessa Brown Clinic, doctors Lenna Liu and Ben Danielson treat children of all ages.

Inside the Odessa Brown Clinic, doctors Lenna Liu and Ben Danielson treat children of all ages.

They work in the center of Seattle, at the core of Washington state's obesity epidemic.

"I think the problem is rightfully called an epidemic and not only are we seeing more kids overweight, but we're also seeing more of those overweight kids extremely overweight," said Dr. Danielson.

Most of the children who come here are pushing the limits of standardized growth charts.

"We looked at the charts of kids who come to our clinic and we found that about 40 percent of our patients over the age of 10 were at risk of being overweight or were overweight. This is higher than the national data, and we see it every day in clinic," said Dr. Liu.

And every day they see overweight kids dealing with adult health disorders including type two diabetes, a condition that was once considered an "old people's" problem.

"I think as a pediatrician I wasn't trained to take care of type two diabetes and now I'm going to need to brush up on it because I do think we are going to have to deal with it. The other thing as a pediatrician we're going to have to start managing are high cholesterol, early heart disease risk factors," said Dr. Liu.

As soon as a child is born, steps can be taken to prevent obesity. During his regular check-up, baby Evan is getting measured and weighed.

KING Recently the clinic organized a "Wee Walk" for their pint-sized patients.

A quick calculation will determine Evan's body mass index, or BMI. It's one of the best ways to determine if a child has harmless baby fat or unwanted pounds.

Also on the checklist at these check-ups is a talk about healthy eating for infants.

"We do things like stress the importance of breast feeding, just because we know that statistically and scientifically that decrease the risk of obesity later in life," said Dr. Danielson.

In addition, Dr. Danielson advocates exercise. Recently the clinic organized a "Wee Walk" for their pint-sized patients.

"It's a good way to celebrate activity and physical health and start it at a very young age," said Dr. Danielson.

These baby steps quickly become great strides when you look down the road and consider what lies ahead for this "Generation at Risk."