What are the clinical manifestations of childhood obesity?

  Childhood obesity is a common disease in childhood, and its incidence has been increasing with the improvement of people’s living standards in recent years. Childhood obesity will not only affect the child’s physical shape, but also lay a lot of hidden dangers to the child’s health. It will lead to adult obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, etc. It will also affect the intellectual development and psychological health of the child, which is not conducive to the healthy growth of children. Here are the clinical manifestations of childhood obesity: childhood obesity can occur at any age, even fetus can also occur, most commonly in infancy, 5 to 6 years old children and adolescents. Affected children usually have a strong appetite, like to eat sweets and high-fat food. Obviously obese children often feel fatigue, shortness of breath or leg pain when exerting themselves, most noticeably when walking up stairs or doing physical work. Severe obesity restricts chest expansion and diaphragm movement due to excessive accumulation of fat, resulting in reduced pulmonary air exchange, causing hypoxia, shortness of breath, cyanosis, increased red blood cells, heart enlargement or congestive heart failure or even death, called obesity-poor oxygen exchange syndrome.  Clinically, the diagnosis of childhood obesity is measured by the calculated value of the child’s weight and length. If a child’s weight reaches or exceeds 20% of the average standard weight calculated by length, has a history of over-nutrition, under-activity or family history of obesity, and is uniformly obese without other abnormal clinical manifestations, it can be diagnosed as simple obesity. Weight more than 20% to 30% of the standard weight is mild obesity, more than 30% to 50% is moderate obesity, >50% is severe obesity.  In addition to the above clinical manifestations, the physical examination of the affected children is also different from normal children. Obese children’s physical examination can be seen in the children’s subcutaneous fat, but uniform distribution, abdominal expansion and sagging, serious obesity can be due to excessive subcutaneous fat, so that the pleura, buttocks and thighs skin white or purple lines; because of excessive weight, walking two lower limbs overload can lead to knee valgus and flat feet. Excess chest fat in girls should be distinguished from breast development, which can be palpable as hard nodules in the breast tissue. In males, excessive fat in the inner thighs and perineum can be misdiagnosed as penile dysplasia because the penis can be concealed in the fatty tissue. Obese children often develop sexually earlier, so their final height is often slightly lower than that of normal children. Because of the fear of being ridiculed and unwilling to interact with other children, so often have psychological barriers, such as low self-esteem, timidity, loneliness, etc..  In summary, the above is the method of the clinical manifestation of childhood obesity, can be for your reference. I hope that parents and friends know more about childhood obesity knowledge, strengthen the attention to childhood obesity, once the child is found to have the above symptoms to bring the child to the clinic as soon as possible.