NationStates Jolt Archive


Fat toddlers 'risk early puberty'

Alpha Aura
05-03-2007, 15:12
*squints*

*tilts head to the left*

... *tilts head to the right*

...... I give up.
Ifreann
05-03-2007, 15:12
That picture scares me....
Alpha Aura
05-03-2007, 15:13
Oh no! I am not exempt!
Smunkeeville
05-03-2007, 15:13
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

although.......this is an interesting development.......I mean, I wonder, you know, fat boys have "breasts" maybe that's what's going on with these girls? probably not though........
Allanea
05-03-2007, 15:14
Puberty is now bad?
Smunkeeville
05-03-2007, 15:16
Puberty is now bad?

early puberty has all sorts of health issues attached to it, (for girls anyway) like higher risk of breast and cervical cancer.
Ifreann
05-03-2007, 15:16
What is that picture of? I am increasingly disturbed today....

Looks kinda like C'thulu.
Carisbrooke
05-03-2007, 15:17
What is that picture of? I am increasingly disturbed today....
Newish Zealand
05-03-2007, 15:20
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?



well fat apparently, what part of the body it's from i dare say not
Mogtaria
05-03-2007, 15:23
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

although.......this is an interesting development.......I mean, I wonder, you know, fat boys have "breasts" maybe that's what's going on with these girls? probably not though........

OK the picture - imagine it divided into 4 quadrants.

the bottom left quadrant are the folds of a stomach
the top right quadrant is an arm reaching from shoulder (out of shot ) to knee (out of shot)
the bottom right quadrant is the top of a thigh and hip
the top left quadrant is a lowe rib cage.

the picture is of someone sitting unclothed with their arms around their knees taken from the side.

tada :)
Ifreann
05-03-2007, 15:24
OK the picture - imagine it divided into 4 quadrants.

the bottom left quadrant are the folds of a stomach
the top right quadrant is an arm reaching from shoulder (out of shot ) to knee (out of shot)
the bottom right quadrant is the top of a thigh and hip
the top left quadrant is a lowe rib cage.

the picture is of someone sitting unclothed with their arms around their knees taken from the side.

tada :)

So, not C'thulu?
Compulsive Depression
05-03-2007, 15:25
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

I saw that article earlier and wondered exactly the same thing...
Mogtaria
05-03-2007, 15:33
So, not C'thulu?

No, not enough tentacles in my opinion. Having never met the esteemed uhhh deity(?) however I may be mistaken.
Call to power
05-03-2007, 15:38
Back on topic:Why aren't overweight boys starting puberty earlier?

because they can't get laid? :p

edit: oh and scientist have yet to discover if how the two are linked
Ifreann
05-03-2007, 15:38
Back on topic:Why aren't overweight boys starting puberty earlier?
Demented Hamsters
05-03-2007, 16:06
Back on topic:Why aren't overweight boys starting puberty earlier?
Because puberty occurs in girls when the body is large enough to support a child. Over the last few generations, age of puberty in girls has been decreasing due to better nutrition. It was around 15/16 a couple of centuries ago, but now 12/13 is the norm and it's predicted to drop to 9/10/11 within a generation or two.
Really small and/or skinny girls usually hit puberty much later - due, again, to their bodysize. They don't have the mass and bodyfat stores to carry a fetus to successful gestation. So the body holds off puberty as long as possible until they can.

It's always occured in boys ages 13-15 regardless of size. That's the age when the hormones start kicking in.
Demented Hamsters
05-03-2007, 16:09
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"
Cluichstan
05-03-2007, 16:12
I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

That picture scares me.
HC Eredivisie
05-03-2007, 17:20
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"

:eek:
Seangoli
05-03-2007, 17:28
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

although.......this is an interesting development.......I mean, I wonder, you know, fat boys have "breasts" maybe that's what's going on with these girls? probably not though........

Eh, puberty, and menstraution, are more or less regulated by body fat.

To little body fat, and you may actually not menstruate, to much, and you start the process earlier.

Nothing to spectacular, really.
Utracia
05-03-2007, 17:28
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"

Clearly her parents are unfit to raise children. That is just an awful thing to do to your kid.
Carnivorous Lickers
05-03-2007, 17:32
I see overweight kids all the time. I dont know if its an epidemic or if I am just starting to notice it for whatever reason.

I have sympathy for them because I know they dont know any better and some parent or guardian is supplying them with poor quality food and not enough physical activity. If they start out with these bad eating habits,I'm figuring it will be much harder for them to escape obesity when they get older.

So much for gym class in school.
Carnivorous Lickers
05-03-2007, 17:37
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"

Its very sad that no one helped her at 150 pounds,which is alarming for a child her age and height.

She didnt just blow up to 400 lbs in weeks or months-thats years of ignorance.

But-what do you do? Observe and report this to the authorities? In my opinion. it is a form of child abuse,even though it is likely not intended aqnd the result of ignorance.
She and her parents need care and nutrition/mental counseling.

This child is not obtaining the thousands of calories at each meal on her own-someone is providing them for her.
Hoyteca
05-03-2007, 18:02
Ewwww, Jessica looks so.....so...ewww. Sorry, but I can't stand to look at a child whose weight is considered overweight for TWO fully-grown adults. She weighs more than three of me. Quite disturbing.

And the article is further proof that boys and girls are more biologically different than many people think.
Eltaphilon
05-03-2007, 18:05
What is that picture of? I am increasingly disturbed today....

It is a black-hole into the eternal abyss. It is the gateway to a realm from which there is no escape, and your soul is painfully harvested by the warped inhabitants for their own twisted desires, before you are tortured for eternity.


OK the picture - imagine it divided into 4 quadrants.

the bottom left quadrant are the folds of a stomach
the top right quadrant is an arm reaching from shoulder (out of shot ) to knee (out of shot)
the bottom right quadrant is the top of a thigh and hip
the top left quadrant is a lowe rib cage.

the picture is of someone sitting unclothed with their arms around their knees taken from the side.

tada
Or that.
Compulsive Depression
05-03-2007, 18:13
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"

7 years old, 400lbs?

*Does maths*

Bloody hell! That's over twice as heavy as me! And I'm
a) a Six-foot-two-inches tall adult
b) Not skinny - verging on the opposite, in fact.
...Bloody hell!
Hoyteca
06-03-2007, 03:28
400 pounds is obese for a full-grown weight lifter and those guys have huge, heavy muscles. 400 pounds is more than 3 of me combined. It's basically a disgusting, disturbing form of suicide.
[NS]Fergi America
06-03-2007, 06:00
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"

(This response is assuming there's not some major physical dysfunction that kicked in...it did say she gained 200 more lbs in 2 years, which seems very unusual).

It says she was finally locked into (err...checked into :rolleyes: ) some pediatric hospital to lose weight. But that segment of the show didn't tell the end result (probably to make people tune in later to find out). I wonder what ended up happening?

From my experience of being hospitalized (not "for weight loss" specifically, but the dr. did want me to lose a decent amount of weight while I was in there) it'll take all of 6 months to normalize back to whatever feels right to her (which will probably be around 200 lbs, since the other 200 came on later). And when weight loss is sudden, like it is from being hospitalized, it does NOT feel anywhere near even approaching right. The whole system is expecting 400lbs and if 300 of them disappear in months, the *physical* body will wonder wtf and send signals accordingly.

This child is not obtaining the thousands of calories at each meal on her own-someone is providing them for her.(This is based on experience...sorry, no links) Until she was so big she could hardly move, that "someone" probably wasn't her parents, or at least they weren't willingly providing it. Don't underestimate her wiles. At least as long as she was still able to move normally, she most certainly could have gotten as many calories as she wanted, since she's in a 1st World country. The "someone" is probably a collection of people or stores she can get a bit each from. Nothing at all like "meals." Real weight gain like that doesn't come from "meals!" It comes from getting a fairly constant supply of "a little of this, a little of that." Much harder to track, and almost impossible to cut off such supplies. There's always someone who'll part with a few Chee-Tos. Or to "redirect" a couple bucks from Mommy's purse, and get a huge bag to stash. Or a huge bag to wolf down like a dog, embarrassingly, rather than have such a stash found and stolen (which is why taking away food is a BAD IDEA! Because then the only way to be sure to keep it is to EAT IT ALL!).

I never weighed 400 lbs, but I know from experience how the general dynamic works and how utterly useless it is to try to make an unwilling target lose weight.

I never had any problem circumventing any ill-thought restrictions. Ill-thought because the usual tactics create a psychological imperative to hoard, and eat, all the desireable food possible. There's 2 things going on: Deprivation, and a battle of wills. Both create unstoppable, and likely instinctual, need for resistance.

ALL the methods I've ever seen suggested (incl. by professionals) in these cases amount to attempts to FORCE affected kids to lose weight. This actually psychologically forces the kid to GAIN weight instead. As soon as force-attempts are made, that means that not losing weight = winning!! And gaining weight = winning more! And losing weight because someone made her = failure on a much more important level than the weight itself can ever be. Therefore, trying to FORCE kids to lose weight instead forces them to gain it as a defense of their sense of self.

And, attempts to take food away causes a great fear of deprivation. In extreme cases (like in obese children) this brings on what could be called a psychology akin to what could be called reverse-anorexia (note: Not bulimia...). Think of how an anorexic can look in a mirror and see themselves as fat despite being bone-thin...then throw that into direct reverse. Having food taken away breeds a feeling that famine is just around the corner at all times, and that no stash, no amount of weight, is ever enough to negate that threat.

Unfortunately, *logically* realizing all this doesn't undo a childhood that's been marked by the uncertainty of not knowing if the food you put away tonight will have been disappeared by the time you look again.

Usually the "taking away" starts with some reasoning like "that isn't healthy for you." Or "you've had too much of..." What adults don't realize is that "healthy" is just not in the range of understanding of a kid. What the kid understands is, "I let go of this food before I ate it all" and "now it's gone". If they let go, they WERE going to refrain from eating the whole damn bag--and if it's then taken, they've effectively been punished for that restraint!

She and her parents need care and nutrition/mental counseling.Definitely mental counseling--that doesn't get the win/lose competition started, and hopefully undoes the damage that's already been done from prior clumsy attempts at causing weight loss. I'm sure that kid has heard enough nutritional lecturing from people already to be able to get a master's in the subject if she wanted one.

Problem is, most shrinks seem to have the same exact "force" mentality when it comes to children as parents do...thereby making the problem even worse.

On another note:

Any kid who'd become 400lbs at that age has quite obviously got the stronger will (assuming no big metabolic dysfunction) and a bottomless drive to not lose (that war of wills)! She's kept that up despite her parents' attitude, her classmates' attitude, and everyone else's rot that she's run into. Not to mention ignoring physical signals that you probably wouldn't come across unless you were being intentionally tortured or in a severe accident. AND she's got wiles--she had gotten her parents to keep feeding her after she could no longer find/sneak/steal food herself! Now THAT is doing something. She (and those like her) are more stubborn than any mule! People who think the fat are weak-willed are ignorant at best.
South Lizasauria
06-03-2007, 07:30
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

although.......this is an interesting development.......I mean, I wonder, you know, fat boys have "breasts" maybe that's what's going on with these girls? probably not though........

I can explain how this would work. The main ingredients for hormones like estrogen and testosterone have fat as a main ingredient or so I hear. Excess fat means its easier to make hormones since it's readily available. This may also explain why fat people tend to be oversexed compared to those who aren't fat, which also explains why the majority of Americans are sex freaks.

Note that all the things I stated above were based on my knowledge of microbiology and that no offense was intended.
Anti-Social Darwinism
06-03-2007, 07:34
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6410961.stm

I just want to know, WTF is that a picture of in the upper right?

although.......this is an interesting development.......I mean, I wonder, you know, fat boys have "breasts" maybe that's what's going on with these girls? probably not though........

If you click on it, it says it's "the side and arm of an obese person." If you can't tell what it is immediately, I'd say it's useless.
Greyenivol Colony
06-03-2007, 07:35
Oh no! I am not exempt!

Teen Girl Squad?

And according to the image properties it is "[t]he side and arm of an obese person".
Kanabia
06-03-2007, 07:42
Its very sad that no one helped her at 150 pounds,which is alarming for a child her age and height.

She didnt just blow up to 400 lbs in weeks or months-thats years of ignorance.

But-what do you do? Observe and report this to the authorities? In my opinion. it is a form of child abuse,even though it is likely not intended aqnd the result of ignorance.
She and her parents need care and nutrition/mental counseling.

This child is not obtaining the thousands of calories at each meal on her own-someone is providing them for her.
Yeah, I agree.
Christmahanikwanzikah
06-03-2007, 07:45
This is going to earn me some frownie points :D, but what exactly does it matter that an obese girl reaches puberty faster, anyway? Sure, they're more likely to accept sexual intercourse. The doing drugs things doesn't matter.

Uh, thing is... they're kind of... obese. Unless high schoolers are into that kind of thing now... :cool:
Proggresica
06-03-2007, 08:08
Maybe the masturbation can help them lose weight.
[NS]Fergi America
06-03-2007, 08:08
Uh, thing is... they're kind of... obese. Unless high schoolers are into that kind of thing now...No problem if it's truly "early" puberty, which would be before high school: Some boys are ready very early too and they're generally very desperate, since nobody else their age is yet interested [I]at all!!

Having a monopoly on a supply does help to increase attractiveness. If the big girls make themselves available, it'll be either them or none, until the other girls catch up.
Greyenivol Colony
06-03-2007, 08:13
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"

I seriously cannot imagine living in a country where that constitutes news, I mean, it's just a freak show, no meaningful content whatsoever.
Demented Hamsters
06-03-2007, 16:00
A bit of extra info about 'Baby' Jessica:
Apparently she suffers from hyperphagia - a problem that affects the hypothalamus where one not only never feels full after eating, one constantly feels hungry.
Experiments done on rats (where a specific part of the hypothalamus is burnt out) had them treble their bodyweight in a very short time. They'd even eat things which aren't food (wood, leather, cardboard)

My guess is what happened here is that she wailed and cried and demanded food, and her parents caved in and just fed her to keep her quiet. They wouldn't have known that she had a medical condition and that feeding her wasn't going to solve anything.
While she could waddle, she was prob stealing into the kitchen and wolfing down 1000's of calories at a time (another effect of hyperphagia is that they can eat heaps in a sitting).

Still - when you consider it: 200 pounds in 2 years is like 2 pounds a week. That's around 9000 extra calories - 1300 a day every day. That's extra - on top of what her body needed to maintain. That's hard core eating.

I read somewhere that she did lose lots of weight in the rehab clinic she was placed in. But let's face it: She's always going to be fat. The number of fat cells in your body is determined by around the time you're 8-10. So if you're fat as a kid, you'll have more fat cells than a skinny kid even if you lose the weight later. This means you predisposed to gaining weight later in life.
Fat cells are pricks - after childhood, you can make more, but you can never lose them.
With this kid, I bet she's got a LOT of fat cells.
Even with the weight loss, she'll have shitloads of other health problems - diabetes for one. I'd expect her thigh bones will be all bended due to the immense weight they were forced to carry. Heart and respiratory problems too, no doubt.


On a different tack:
I found it pathetic the news report on her.
'Brave' Jessica. :rolleyes:
Brave?
For what?
Being a fucking whale?
Having dumbass parents who couldn't realise her eating behaviours weren't normal?

Brave is risking your life to save someone else.
Brave is not sitting on your fat ass and gaining 200 pounds in 2 years.

The news reporter should take her to Ethopia and parade her round the camps filled with the starving poor. Then try telling them how brave she is for having gained so much weight in so little time.
I'm sure they'll all wholeheartedly agree.
Isidoor
06-03-2007, 16:28
This is going to earn me some frownie points :D, but what exactly does it matter that an obese girl reaches puberty faster, anyway?

it's quit unhealthy, more risks of certain types of cancer etc. i also imagine that it's quite disturbing to start puberty before most of your friends.
Greater Trostia
06-03-2007, 17:50
If we're talking fat kids, here's one that will make your jaw drop:

Baby Jessica (http://www.flicklife.com/02887dfbe55ebb2b64ba/7_Year_Old_Jessica_weighs_400_Pounds.html)

"Ya got any popcorn?"


I saw that link yesterday and last night, it literally gave me nightmares.