By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

Very obese children are far more miserable than normal-weight kids.
In fact, these kids rate their quality of life about the same as kids with
cancer do, a study reports today.

Parents, teachers and others have known for years that chubby children are often teased by their peers and have low self-esteem, but this study is one of the first to quantify how bad they really feel about themselves and their lives.

About 20% to 30% of kids in the USA are either overweight or at risk of becoming so — numbers that have grown dramatically over the past 30 years, according to the latest government statistics. Extra pounds put kids at a greater risk of becoming heavy adults and increase their chances of developing health problems such as type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol.

For the latest study, researchers asked 106 obese children, ages 5 to 18, and their parents to complete a survey called the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory. The average age was 12; 57 were boys and 49 were girls. Some had medical complications associated with their obesity.

The kids in the study were at the very high end of the weight charts for children their age. The average height was 5-foot-1 and the average weight was 174 pounds.

In general, a 12-year-old boy who is 4 feet 11 inches tall usually weighs an average of 90 pounds, but an obese boy weighs 120 pounds or more. A girl the same age who is 5 feet tall weighs an average of 92 pounds. An obese girl weighs 128 pounds or more.

The children and their parents answered questions about physical, emotional, social and school issues, including ones about the kids' ability to participate in sports, how well they get along with peers, how much they are teased and how sad and angry they are.

Researchers then compared the obese children's scores with those of normal-weight, healthy kids and children with cancer who have had chemotherapy. Among the findings reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association:

• Obese kids are 51/2 times more likely to report an impaired quality of life
  than healthy, normal-weight children.
• Parents of obese children perceive their child's quality of life as lower than
  the child perceives it.
• Severely obese kids report a quality of life as bad as that reported by
  children with cancer who have been treated with chemotherapy.

"This study demonstrates how difficult it is to be an obese child," says lead author Jeffrey Schwimmer, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California-San Diego.

Keith Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, works with overweight children. "I've had kids cry in my office because other kids are teasing them. Kids are especially sensitive about how they look."

Ayoob recommends that parents keep foods like cookies, cakes, candy and soda to a minimum in the house and focus more on fruits, vegetables, whole grains and non-fat dairy products. Also, activity has to be emphasized, Ayoob says.

Parents and overweight children need help, says exercise physiologist Melinda Sothern, director of the Prevention of Childhood Obesity Laboratory at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. "They need the support of someone or several individuals to give them encouragement and motivation. They need to have realistic expectations and to learn that small weight losses will bring them closer to a healthy weight as they continue to grow."

Source: USA Today.

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