State: Teens must shape up
Survey on smoking, weight raises fears for their health later on
Unless they clean up their act, Indiana’s teens could end up in worse shape than their parents as they age, according to the latest survey of youth risk behaviors.
Conducted every two years, the Indiana Youth Risk Behavior Survey released Thursday found that more than a quarter of the state’s high schoolers are overweight or obese, while about 23 percent are smokers.
In the 1980s, obesity rates among youths were about a third of what they are today, studies show. As obesity rates among the young increase, doctors are finding diabetes, heart disease and other potentially deadly conditions in younger and younger patients.
“This generation needs to make a lot of changes, I think most physicians would agree, to have the projected tenure of life of the generation before them,” said Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Gregory Larkin.
Despite concerted public and private efforts, Indiana’s teens have made little progress during the past six years in improving their health when it comes to weight, the study found. Although the percentages shifted slightly, high school students in 2009 were just as likely to be obese or overweight as from 2003 to 2007, the study found.
Doctors, policymakers and parents need to face the problem, said Dr. Vaughn Rickert, director of the section of adolescent medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children.
“We can no longer say, my child or my patient will grow out of being overweight or obese,” he said. “If there’s no intervention, it is likely that they’re not going to be more healthy. The question is, are they not going to be more healthy or not live as long?”
Obesity, bad eating habits and lack of physical activity can lead to cancer and cardiovascular disease, experts say. Those three factors contribute to about 30 percent of all cancers, said Tom Rich, director of comprehensive cancer control for the American Cancer Society in Michigan and Indiana.
In Indiana, cancer claims the lives of 12,000 people a year, said Keylee Wright, cancer control manager for the Indiana Cancer Consortium. Pursuing a healthy lifestyle throughout one’s life can translate into better health later in life.
“If adopted at an early age, these behaviors, among others, are part of a healthy lifestyle,” she said.
No simple solutions exist for reducing teen obesity, experts say. Many factors, from their friends to their families, influence teens’ eating behaviors.
“It’s not as easy a problem as just saying you need to lose 25 pounds,” Rickert said. “These are not Jenny Craig commercials.”
On at least one measure, however, Indiana teens performed well. In 2009, 40.6 percent of teens were physically active for at least 60 minutes a day, compared with the national average of 37 percent.
However, that activity does not translate into weight control. Just less than 13 percent of all high school students register as obese, and nearly 16 percent count as overweight.
“It is somewhat of a disconnect,” Larkin said. “We know it isn’t simply ‘exercise more.’ It’s your food choices.”
The percentage of teens who drank soda declined from 35.6 percent in 2007 to 29.7 percent in 2009. But so did teens’ intake of fruits and vegetables. In 2007, just more than 18 percent ate the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Two years later, that number dipped to 16.1 percent.
Nationally, high school students might also fare better when it comes to tobacco-related diseases, such as lung cancer.
But Indiana youths are more likely to be smokers than their counterparts elsewhere, and one in 10 uses smokeless tobacco, the survey found.
Rather than comparing Indiana’s rates to the national average of 19.5 percent, Larkin said he’s more interested in seeing which states perform better and identifying practices that Indiana can adopt.
For instance, many other states impose higher taxes on cigarettes and have statewide anti-smoking laws, two features that discourage youth smoking.
Adopting policies that will help improve teens’ behavior is what public health is all about, Larkin said.
“The challenge for public health is to make the right choices easier than the wrong choices,” he said.
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