What to you think can be done to combat this issue?

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Half Of US Overweight Teens At Risk For Serious Health Problems.

The AP  (5/21) reports, "Half the nation's overweight teens have unhealthy blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugar levels that put them at risk for future heart attacks and other cardiac problems," according to a study  published online May 21 in the journal Pediatrics. What's more, "an even larger proportion of obese adolescents have such a risk, according to the alarming new numbers." For the study, "the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research focused on 3,383 adolescents ages 12 through 19" who were included in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey .

        "Nearly one in four American adolescents may be on the verge of developing type 2 diabetes or could already be diabetic, representing a sharp increase in the disease's prevalence among children ages 12 to 19 since a decade ago, when it was estimated that fewer than one in 10 were at risk for or had diabetes," the New York Times  (5/21, Rabin) "Well" blog reports. While the study "confirmed that teenage obesity and overweight rates had leveled off in recent years and that teenage rates of high blood pressure and high cholesterol had not changed greatly, it found that the percentage of teenagers testing positive for diabetes and prediabetes had nearly tripled to 23 percent in 2007-8 from nine percent in 1999-2000." 


http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/05/15/peds.2011-3418