By Cyril O. Enwonwu|July 05, 2009
A report released last week shows that obesity is harming the health of millions of Americans, including children and teens. The report, "F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America 2009," from the Trust for America's Health, says that 28.8 percent of Maryland youths ages 10 to 17 are overweight or obese - and thus at increased risk of a long list of chronic health problems such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis and some cancers.
None of this comes as much of a shock. But here's something that most people probably would find surprising: Despite the fact that they generally eat more than enough food, overweight children also can suffer from malnutrition.
How can a fat teenager living in Baltimore experience malnutrition, a condition that brings to mind images of children with swollen bellies living in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and other impoverished parts of the developing world?
Originally from Nigeria, I am a nutritional biochemist who studies the interactions among dietary habits, infections, inflammation and immunity. Today, global health research tells us that malnutrition is as much about what we eat as what we do not; it is either a lack of adequate food or an overabundance of nutritionally bankrupt foods.
Take a 14-year-old African-American boy living in Baltimore. Like many Americans, he eats too much junk food, while watching hours of television or playing video games.
He knows he is obese. What he doesn't know is that his body is starving for omega--3 fatty acids and other essential nutrients like vitamins and minerals required for good development and health.
Now take a 14-year-old boy from Nigeria. He has poor, uneducated parents and has to share a small bowl of rice and legumes with his three siblings every day. He walks several miles to school daily, often in intense heat. He is emaciated and frequently endures pangs of hunger. For Nigerian children like this, malnutrition usually starts before they are born due to poor prenatal care.
They are an ocean apart, yet both boys suffer from malnutrition, ranging from undernutrition with resulting short stature and below normal weight for the Nigerian to overconsumption of high-fat foods with little or no exercise leading to obesity for the American. Research tells us that both of these forms of malnutrition weaken a person's defenses against various infections and make one more prone to diseases, including measles, malaria, tuberculosis, respiratory and diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS and some cancers.
