A morbidly obese two-year-old has become the youngest person in the world to undergo bariatric surgery.

The parents of the toddler from Saudi Arabia who weighed 72 lbs and had a Body Mass Index of 41 sought help because he suffered sleep apnea that caused him to stop breathing while asleep.

Two attempts to control his weight by dieting failed said the medics who carried out the bariatric surgery Mohammed Al Mohaidlya, Ahmed Sulimana and Horia Malawib in an article in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports.

When he first presented to an endocrinologist at 14 months, the toddler weighed 46 lbs but after dieting for four months his weight increased by 17 pounds.

The doctors from Prince Sultan Military Medical City at Riyadh were unable to ascertain whether the child’s parents stuck to the diet.

By the time the boy was referred to the obesity clinic he weighed 54 lbs and his obesity had led to sleep apnea and bowing of the legs.

A further attempt at dieting failed and when he reached 72 lbs doctors decided to perform surgery.

Surgeons carried out a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy on the boy which involved removing the outer margin of the stomach to restrict food intake, leaving a sleeve of stomach, roughly the size and shape of a banana.

Unlike a lap band, the surgery is not reversible.

“To our knowledge LSG has never been tried in very young age children,” the surgeons say in their report. “We present here probably the first case report of the successful management of a two year old morbidly obese boy.”

Within two months the boy lost 15 per cent of his body weight and two years after the 2010 surgery his weight had fallen from 72 lbs to 52 lbs and his BMI of 24 was within the normal range.

Obesity expert adjunct professor Paul Zimmett from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute said the case was “shocking” and “very unusual”.

“It’s rather like the other day when we saw one of our spacecrafts going out of our solar system into the dark regions of space, it’s going into unknown territory,” he said of the case.

“We have no idea what effect this may have on the child’s growth and unless he has proper follow up he may suffer vitamin deficiencies.”

Obese toddler has gastric bypass surgery | New York Post

New research from the University of Adelaide in Australia, however, notes that people who become obese are even less likely to keep the weight off due to a damaged switch in the stomach that tells the brain it’s full. In other words, even though an obese person loses weight and begins eating less, their brains never register that their stomachs are full and satiated.

This research highlights two key components about obesity: As noted in prior research, obesity can be a vicious cycle of hunger and health risks. Second even after a person loses weight, this faulty switch will continue to urge a person to eat more and return to a high-fat diet.

“The stomach’s nerve response does not return to normal upon return to a normal diet. This means you would need to eat more food before you felt the same degree of fullness as a healthy individual,” explains study leader Amanda Page, associate professor and the university’s Nerve Gut Research Laboratory.

According to Page, the hormone leptin is responsible for desensitizing the nerves in the stomach which relay information to the brain. After being subjected to high-fat diets for long periods of time, this hormone essentially wears away at the stomach nerves and stops regulating food intake. In a healthy person’s stomach, leptin works to let the brain know the stomach has received enough food. This change, says Page, occurs once high-fat diets are introduced and isn’t reversed once a person changes their diet and loses weight.

“Unfortunately, our results show that the nerves in the stomach remain desensitized to fullness after weight loss has been achieved,” said Page. “We know that only about 5% of people on diets are able to maintain their weight loss, and that most people who’ve been on a diet put all of that weight back on within two years.”

It’s not yet known if this effect is long-lasting or if the leptin eventually returns to its normal function.

Obesity Can Be Programmed Through High-Fat Diets – Health News – redOrbit

A growing number of Americans are standing, walking and even cycling their way through the workday at treadmill desks, standup desks or other moving workstations. Others are forgoing chairs in favor of giant exercise balls to stay fit.

Walking on a treadmill while making phone calls and sorting through emails means “being productive on two fronts,” said Andrew Lockerbie, senior vice president of benefits at Brown & Brown, a global insurance consulting firm.

Lockerbie can burn 350 calories a day walking 3 to 4 miles on one of two treadmill desks that his companys Indianapolis office purchased earlier this year.

“Im in meetings and at my desk and on the phone all day,” he said. “Its great to be able to have an option at my work to get some physical activity while Im actually doing office stuff. You feel better, you get your blood moving, you think clearly.”

Treadmill desks designed for the workplace are normally set to move at 1 to 2 mph, enough to get the heart rate up but not too fast to distract from reading or talking on the phone comfortably.

It’s been a decade since scientific studies began to show that too much sitting can lead to obesity and increase the risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Even going to the gym three times a week doesn’t offset the harm of being sedentary for hours at a time, said Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic.

“There’s a glob of information that sitting is killing us,” Levine said. “Youre basically sitting yourself into a coffin.

More Americans Exercise While They Work

American eaters love a good villain. Diets that focus on one clear bad guy have gotten traction even as the bad guy has changed: fat, carbohydrates, animal products, cooked food, gluten. And now Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California at San Francisco, is adding sugar to the list. His book “ Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease ” makes the case that sugar is almost single-handedly responsible for Americans’ excess weight and the illnesses that go with it. “Sugar is the biggest perpetrator of our current health crisis,” says Lustig, blaming it for not just obesity and diabetes but also for insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, stroke, even cancer. “Sugar is a toxin,” he says. “Pure and simple.”

His target is one particular sugar: fructose, familiar for its role in making fruit sweet. Fruit, though, is not the problem; the natural sugar in whole foods, which generally comes in small quantities, is blameless. The fructose in question is in sweeteners — table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, honey and others — which are all composed of the simple sugars fructose and glucose, in about equal proportions.

Is sugar a toxin? Experts debate the role of fructose in our obesity epidemic – The Washington Post

Many schools are sending notes home to parents, telling them their children are overweight.

Lauren Schmitt, a registered dietitian, starts the school year by checking out the weight of hundreds of preschoolers in the San Fernando Valley.

“We look at growth charts and percentiles. And when a child is at 95 percent of their…we can look at weight for age or weight for height…that child would be considered obese,” she said.

By October, CBS2’s Suraya Fadel reported that parents will get what is called “healthy or unhealthy” letters. Kids call them “fat letters.”

Schmitt said out of the 900 2 to 5-year-old children she looks at, roughly 200 are listed as obese.

“We let the parents know in a gentle fashion, but we also send out a ton of handouts to try to help that family,” she said.

Experts said 19 states around the country are cracking down on childhood obesity with similar letters.

“Every year there are a few phone calls from parents who are upset,” said Schmitt.

Many districts in Southern California, such as Riverside County, choose to follow state guidelines and instead send test results of the child’s body mass index to their parents.

“It shouldn’t be a stigma. It’s not a way to categorize someone. It’s just showing that this child has increased risk to be obese as an adult, which then could lead to quite a few chronic diseases,” said Schmitt.

The dietitian said the goal is to empower and educate parents with the tools to make healthier lifestyle choices for children.

Schools Sending ‘Fat Letters’ To Parents About Overweight Children « CBS Los Angeles

A study published Monday in a Psychological Science found that after a sports team loses, fans of that team eat 16 percent more saturated fats than they usually do.

Fans of winning teams apparently are getting thinner, too. The study found the winning fans ate 9 percent less saturated fat.

Fans have such a deep attachment to their NFL teams that losing can trigger a food binge, the study said.

However, at the Fan Central booth at the Minnesota State Fair, some Vikings fans don’t buy it.

“I don’t know. The Vikings lost a lot last year and I actually stayed the same weight, so I don’t know if I actually believe it,” Vikings fan Steve Hanson said.

The study says fans after a loss not only eat more, they turn to fatty often fried comfort foods and sweets.“I definitely don’t do that. I just hope they win the next game that is all you can do,” fan Michael Coleman said.

Other studies have linked sports losses to an increase in domestic violence and calls to police.

A study released by the National Institute of Health said if a team — that is expected to win – loses, 911 calls to police increased by 10 percent. But overeating, while some fans say no – others agree.

Study: Link Found Between Losing Sports Teams, Heavier Fans « CBS Minnesota

At least one North Texas school district has turned up its nose at the new federal lunch program.  Many schools report kids refused to eat the healthier meals that are supposed to be packed with whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

Carroll Independent School District has dropped out for a year.  Nutrition Services Director Mary Brunig says the requirements are too restrictive.  “You have to follow exactly what is in this meal pattern, if you are the national school lunch program.”

Brunig says as a result, a lot of food wound up in the trash.

“With the new program in place, the new meal pattern, our participation started to drop.  And the other thing was there was food waste.  Children were not eating the food,” she said.  “If the children aren’t eating the food, there’s no nutrition.”

Brunig says the district plans to create its own healthy meals without federal restrictions.

Carroll ISD Opting Out Of Federal Lunch Program « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

Beginning a day of protests that organizers say will spread to 50 cities and 1,000 stores across the country, a crowd of chanting workers gathered Thursday morning at a McDonalds in midtown Manhattan to call for higher wages and the chance to join a union.

About 500 people, including workers, activists, religious leaders, news crews and local politicians, gathered outside the McDonalds on Fifth Avenue. The protesters chanted “Si Se Puede” “Yes, We Can” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho $7.25 has got to go,” holding signs saying “On Strike: Cant Survive on $7.25,” referring to the federal minimum wage.

The protesters plan to spread out to other stores throughout New York during the day. Protests are also expected in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and other cities.

Meanwhile, the Employment Policies Institute, a Washington-based think tank, has placed a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal with a picture of a robot making what looks like pancakes. It explains that restaurants have to reduce their costs of service to keep prices low, which might mean switching to robots if wages get too high.

“Why Robots Could Soon Replace Fast Food Workers Demanding a Higher Minimum Wage,” the ad reads.

The fast-food protests began in New York on Nov. 29. There have been three protests in New York since then, and they have spread to Chicago and other cities. Thursdays protest is to mark the first for fast-food workers in Los Angeles and other cities.

National fast-food wage protests kick off in New York – latimes.com