Preventable epidemics are soaring, say children's doctors
Melanie Defries
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Preventable health conditions are reaching epidemic levels in children, which could lead to a generation dying before their parents, according to doctors at a leading children's hospital.
Staff at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, the busiest children's hospital in Europe, told reporters from the BBC's 'Panorama' programme that more than £1m and hundreds of hours of treatment time are being spent tackling conditions such as obesity, tooth decay, alcohol abuse and the problems caused by passive smoking.
In the documentary, which was shown on BBC One last week (13 April), Steven Ryan, medical director at Alder Hey, said, 'These children should not be suffering from these problems and they should not be here at this hospital. Maybe this is a generation where children will be dying before their parents.'
Mr Ryan added that he was frustrated at the amount of resources being used to treat preventable health conditions and said that these were causing funding to be diverted away from treating more serious conditions.
The dental department at Alder Hey is one of the areas most affected by preventable conditions, with more than 1,000 dental operations carried out each year on children under the age of six.
One five-year-old child had to have eight molars - almost half of her teeth - removed because of tooth decay caused by too much sugar in her diet.
The rise in obesity is also putting a strain on resources, with admissions linked to obesity in both adults and children up from 5,056 in 2007-2008 to 8,085 in 2008-2009.
Mohammed Didi, a consultant at Alder Hey who deals with children who are seriously obese, told the BBC that he is seeing heavier children at increasingly younger ages.
He said, 'It is maybe to do with their diet - with parents working so often, the amount of time they spend watching television, how much time they spend outside being physically active, and the types of food they eat.'
Victoria Taylor, senior heart health dietician at the British Heart Foundation, said, 'For many children, once they have started on a path of overweight and obesity it can be difficult for them to turn back.
'This is important because in adults, obesity is a key risk factor for heart disease in itself, as well as being linked to other major risk factors including Type 2 diabetes and raised blood pressure.'
