The following article was printed in the Fort Worth Star Telegram this past week. So often we believe that people who are obese are sitting around eating thousands upon thousands of calories everyday. While this certainly can be true, more often than not, I have found that my overweight, obese, and morbidly obese clients are not eating too many calories - instead they are caught in a cycle of starving and then overeating.
Poor, obese kids aren’t eating enough
Children living in poverty are obese in part because they don’t eat enough to meet the daily nutritional requirements needed for cell function and metabolism, a study shows.
A 9-year-old should consume 1,400 to 2,200 calories daily, said Roberto Trevino, director of the nonprofit Social and Health Research Center. But in the study of 1,400 children from poorer neighborhoods, 44 percent were consuming less than 1,400 calories, and 33 percent were obese.
“This study shows these kids were not eating enough,” Trevino said. “And when they did eat, it was all the wrong things.”
Missing from the children’s diets were four key nutrients: calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. When magnesium — found in cooked spinach and other foods — is missing from the diet, it can predispose an individual to diabetes, Trevino said.
The research is published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
| Forth Worth Star Telegram
