Good grief. What are we doing to our children?

The American Academy of Pediatrics for the first time recommended that doctors offer weight-loss drugs to obese children 12 or older, alongside lifestyle and behavioral counseling. https://t.co/DXBGUTLYnz

— Sarah Toy (@sarahtoy17) January 9, 2023

The American Academy of Pediatrics is sure covering itself with glory lately, moving from telling the world babies don’t need to see faces…

Good morning. Just a reminder that the American Academy of Pediatrics #AAP declared that babies and toddlers don’t actually need to see faces and that even special-needs toddlers from 24 months up must have their faces covered no matter how much it initially distresses them. https://t.co/8dZCdAQCMe pic.twitter.com/Tj5JhQeqib

— Amygator 🐊 *not an actual alligator (@AmyA1A) March 14, 2022

…to encouraging rendering “gender affirming care” for minors – with all the irreversible horrors that could entail – to now…this?

The American Academy of Pediatrics for the first time recommended physicians offer weight-loss drugs for children with obesity, aiming to take early action against an increasingly common condition linked to a host of health problems.

Children 12 or older who are obese should be offered medications for weight loss alongside lifestyle and behavioral counseling, according to guidelines published on Monday by the largest professional association of pediatricians in the U.S. The association also recommended that doctors offer to refer severely obese children 13 or older to surgeons to assess whether they would be good candidates for bariatric surgery. It said pediatricians should screen obese children for high cholesterol, diabetes and hypertension.

…“What we now know is that obesity is a chronic disease in children and adolescents,” she said. “Treatment should be started early and at the highest available intensity.”

Holy schamoly moly! Even advocating bariatric surgery for 12-year-olds? WHUT?!

And off-label, untested drugs okay again? I guess they are if you’re using them in guinea pigs children.

…The AAP mentioned some drugs that could be prescribed for such treatment, including orlistat, which blocks fat absorption; semaglutide, which decreases hunger; and metformin, a diabetes drug.

Orlistat and semaglutide are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of obesity in children 12 years and older. Metformin hasn’t been approved as a weight-loss drug, though it has been used off-label for that purpose in children. Studies of its effect on weight loss have shown mixed results, the AAP said. Pediatricians can consider prescribing it to children with obesity under specific conditions, the AAP said: alongside intensive health behavior and lifestyle counseling and when there is another medical reason to do so, such as Type 2 diabetes.

I’m not sure what you think about it, but after the COVID vax pharmaceutical windfall? I’m a little jaundiced when it comes to new miracle drugs. Just sayin’…

…Research has found that an individual’s weight is affected by diet and exercise, but also by genetics and hormones, which has prompted the development of new medications.

“The breakthrough that happened in the last few years was people started realizing that there are hormones made in the gut that have multiple roles related to obesity. By targeting these, medications can help people feel full faster and help stabilize insulin levels,” Dr Han told NBC News.

“The problem with these medications is they are very expensive and insurance often doesn’t cover them,” Dr Han added, noting that one of the drugs used, Wegovy, can cost $1,500 a month.

…especially when the “disease” can be completely cured with non-medical intervention. Just takes tremendous effort sometimes.

Oh. There’s the rub.

…Dr Hassink noted that surgery and drugs are not initial treatment options and should only be employed in specific scenarios when lifestyle changes don’t yield the results needed.

She added that the lifestyle changes needed can be very difficult for many families to follow.

So, if things are difficult/tough/hard to do, you don’t do them and employ the pills? Oh, come on.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that obese children be prescribed weight-loss drugs 😳 RIDICULOUS, trade their game controllers for water bottles and send them outside! Medication is NOT a fix all. Active movement provides both physical & mental stimulation

— Cougarah (@zisahottie) January 9, 2023

Guarantee, there are going to be people who won’t even try, right off the bat. Everyone wants the easy fix and why should you put the effort out when someone’s telling you there’s an alternative to exercise and pushing back from the table? Or not having to listen to the kids moan and complain when you won’t stop at a fast food joint and expect them to eat “home cooked.” Some people aren’t up to facing that hassle, either, and that’s an abdication of parental responsibility. There will come the lip service and a prescription. Another victim class will be created, practically from birth, never having learned portion control or the benefits of getting off their duffs.

Speaking of which, The Medical Experts™ have helped create this crisis themselves, both by demonizing things like milk in favor of fruit juices (sugar sugar SUGAR) vice water and eggs over anything else for years. Having absolute morons funded by your tax dollars develop charts like this:

Industry happily colluding with Real Scientists™ and advocacy groups to blackball people trying to tell the truth about, oh, say, sugar…

Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding.

I say Coke's policies are evil because I saw inside the room.

The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist

— Calley Means (@calleymeans) January 2, 2023

…and then those same groups and Experts™ playing along with locking darn near every child in the country down for over a year and a half.

These dopes locked down children from sports and schools and now we have a child obesity pandemic. Now there is a new drug to push on our kids. Why don’t pediatricians encourage modification of diet and exercise? https://t.co/8a2MXJJhhN

— Boston Mom (@iphigeniamama) January 9, 2023

Admittedly, it started long before that – closing playgrounds was the tail end of a long spiraling sink into blubberville.

When Ebola was little, we were both active-duty Marines working two separate shifts. We still didn’t know how to cook, to boot, so gourmet meals were non-existent and the “could burn water” joke was not funny. But we had milk for him, watered-down apple juice once in a while, McDonald’s was a rare treat, always had salad even if other veggies were missing (well before the days of pre-washed salads). Pizza was once in a while on a weekend. We never had soda in the house (still don’t to this day). We always had eggs. I made his breakfast every morning and his lunch for school unless it was a special day he wanted to buy. If he had cereal, it was oatmeal. Cheerios sometimes. Never anything sugar packed.

I almost killed him once, according to him, heating up canned spinach. I never realized it tasted so different from frozen – told you I couldn’t cook (Canned is vile.). Fortunately, it didn’t put him off veggies for life.

His Dad would make him dinner when I handed him off on my way to work in the late afternoon.

It wasn’t easy, trying to cook every night even as badly as we did. But it was better than a Happy Meal or frozen pizzas, especially if they’re not balanced out by MOVING like a kid should be moving. The point being it can be done.

We’d see other Marines with their little kids and the first thing they’d hand them when they got in the car was a juice box. Like, no.

Couple all that now with games and phones and streaming channels for kids – they’re on their butts all day. As my wise husband once said no one ever won an award for “great thumbs,” yet that’s what we have now. Kids need to be out, moving, and doing. It gets their little brain housing groups functioning on their own, too. Develop their own imaginations, not something thought up for them. We have closed off so much of the world to them – cities are dangerous, schools don’t have gym/can’t make kids dress out for it, and parents can’t turn a kid loose in the park with a horde of other kids – and technology has pretty much closed up what was left.

Do parents allow drugs to finish it off? What about surgery so young? Right now, for adults, somewhere between 15-35% of those who undergo surgery do not meet their weight goals. Aftercare is not an easy thing to endure either, and that’s for an adult. How does this translate to a 12-year-old with his life ahead of him?

Parents have a responsibility. I can’t say it enough, and I know saying doesn’t make it happen. Somebody has got to stop this madness with our kids.

We’re gonna be in great shape.