Our kids are fatter than ever before and it's putting them at risk for hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. But according to family physician Dr. Shafiq Qaadri, cutting fats from their diets may actually make the problem worse.
Qaadri joined Balance Television host Dr. Marla Shapiro to talk about the findings that everyone -- including the American Heart Association -- are talking about.
"There's a little bit of confusing...data that comes out of it," Qaadri explained. "First of all, if you have a high-fat diet, then of course we expect you to put on weight. So if you spend all day...having cheeseburgers, steaks, eggs, cream, butter, oil, then it's really no surprise. The thing that was really surprising was that the people who actually had a low-fat diet didn't in fact do as well as people who had a moderate-fat diet."
There are a couple of theories to explain those results, Qaadri said. Say you're a 15-year-old girl, he said, and you don't want to put on weight. So you avoid milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, pizza and so on.
"What do you substitute for it?" Qaadri asked. "Basically you're having soda pop and candies all day long, and you basically are going into sugar overload. And of course that's what leads to the excess weight gain over time."
Too many kids - and adults - have taken hold of the idea that low-fat means low weight and are ignoring overall lifestyle.
