The Adults Of Tomorrow Are In Serious Trouble!!

We have discussed on numerous occasions the rapid increase of obesity in teenagers and the impact that has had on the increase of teenage and young adult type 2 diabetes. It is not a pretty picture that is being painted.

Now, the New England Journal of Medicine, has presented a study that paints a grim picture of early onset coronary artery disease (CAD), due to the high rate of teenage obesity carrying over into young adulthood.

What they found runs a little bit counter to a “good news” post within the past week where I reported that obesity seems to be leveling off, and with women even seems to have dropped some in the past few years. That good news was based on the adults of today.

If you extrapolate the rate of teen obesity today into adult obesity 20 years from now, it becomes obvious that unless something drastic happens, the leveling off we are experiencing now will disappear and obesity rates in adults will be substantially higher than they’ve over been.

So, let’s not kid ourselves. There is a very bad scenario starting to build and unless something is done, we will have dramatic increases of diabetes, cancer and heart disease in young adults, leading to mortality experiences that we haven’t seen in a very long time.

It won’t be easy to turn that trend around, but a start in the right direction may not be as tough as we think. A UCLA study recently found that, DUH, if you offer more fruits and vegetables in school, kids eat more fruits and vegetables. I have seen the results of several studies that show that kids will eat what they are offered at school, and that the saying “garbage in, garbage out” is right on the money in this case. Feed them junk and they will gain weight. Feed them healthy alternatives and they won’t.

Bottom line. Obesity doesn’t help your health or your life insurance rates as an adult. If you come into adulthood with a trend toward poor health already established, life insurance is going to be very difficult to get at all, let alone at good prices. But that is secondary to the impact it will have on your life and longevity.