Heart Disease In Kids And Teens

Added: 09/19/2007

The problem with heart disease is that people only think about it effecting adults. They don't think about it starting in younger kids. It really should not be surprising that heart disease starts in kids and teens, and then reeks havoc on millions of adults each year. 'This cardiovascular disease gets started well before adulthood,' Dr. Fuhrman points out, 'and this could be caused by the unfit lifestyles many kids and teens choose to live.' This is a problem for many people now, not later.

Most people with heart disease today may have had an unfriendly heart diet earlier in their life, and by early I mean, childhood. Many kids don't know what heart disease is, so it's no surprise that they don't know how to prevent it from happening. When we eat unhealthy as a child, blood vessel damage begins early. Not only does atherosclerosis develop in young adults, but children with high cholesterol levels will have a significantly higher risk of premature sudden death do to heart disease. Our cholesterol levels are being set when we are children. This is why many adults don't see any improvement or little improvement in their cholesterol levels when they change their diet to help lower their cholesterol. For some of these people, changing to a new diet could be to little, to late. They should have changed their eating habits when they were a child. Of course, this is the job of the parents; the mom and dad have to be the one to set rules of what the kid eats. Dinner should not be fast food, parents have to cook healthy dinners for their children. They have to make sure the kids eat it too.

Obese kids are popping up all over America. Of course, there are doctors who say that a trip to the American Heart Association is the first step to keeping heart disease in check. If kids learn about heart disease, they would be more welling to eat healthy to prevent it. You have to make sure your child gets the exercise they need to stay in shape. Also, you have to limit when and how much your kid eats. This is hard for some parents to do because of how much they work. Too many kids are living off fast food and not home cooking. Living off fast food is making them obese and giving them a greater risk of heart disease. These types of food are full of fat and cholesterol. If kids can get a little help from their parents they can beat getting heart disease. Many kids like to get snacks when they get home from school. This is fine if it's a healthy snack. Make sure they don't sit on the coach and eat chips all day. If they're hungry they can have a piece of fruit because it's good for them. Also, they need to go out and play with their friends. Staying active is very important to having a fit body and a healthy heart, free of heart disease. Even a few of the video game systems now, like the Nintendo Wii, are trying to keep kids active. Getting them off the coach and interacting with the video games they play, this is a big step forward I feel.

As you can see kids and teens with heart disease is a growing problem. Of course, kids can't do it alone, they need our help. We need to keep their cholesterol level low. If we don't help them their adult lives could be cut short. Let's get the kids on a heart friendly diet, this way they don't damage their blood vessels. It's sad to see this happening at a young age. If Dr. Fuhrman is right and cardiovascular disease is started in young kids, then we have to help them now. We will help set early food habits that are good for them. Let's teach them that fast food is not good to live off. We can let our kids grow up with a decreased risk of heart disease. Don't you want to see your kid live longer then you?

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