Children’s High Blood Pressure Concern Caused By Poor Lifestyle Habits

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Children’s high blood pressure concern is already raising some serious concerns with medical authorities due to an increasing number of obesity and overweight cases among children.

Children’s high blood pressure prevalent in today’s youth

Health experts now have another problem to deal with because of the rising cases of children having high blood pressure, which is seeing a rise in incidence following in the heels of diabetes.

This, after reports from the Massachusetts General Hospital shows that no less than 3.4 – 3.6% of children from the ages of 3 to 18 have been found to be positive for hypertension.

This was bolstered by another study among middle and high school athletes in Philadelphia showed that 20 percent of the participants were found to be overweight, 24 percent obese and almost 15 percent of them had hypertension.

Alarming health condition

In yet another study, published recently in the journal American Family Physician, shows that among adolescents diagnosed as obese, it was found that 30 percent were boys and around 30 percent were girls having pre-hypertension to hypertension.

But it does not stop there, where another study also points out that often neglected diagnosis of hypertension among children aged 18 and below, according to another study published in the journal Pediatrics.

“In three-fourths of children with pre-hypertension and hypertension the condition is not detected,” says Dr. Goutham Rao, who is the chairman of family and community medicine at the University Hospitals of Cleveland.

Rao said that one of the possible barriers to this lack of proper diagnosis may be due to the doctor’s lack of knowledge on how to treat hypertension among children.

Traditionally, treatment for hypertension is more focused on adults and those above 18 years of age, for which the current dosage may not be suitable for children.

Another unprecedented concern are established standards to determine normal values of blood pressure among children in relation to age, weight, sex and height, again which Rao says, have been established for adults.

Parents should also be concerned

“Parents have very little awareness that their children could have high blood pressure, and they fail to make sure the doctor checks it and tells them the result,” Dr. Rao said. “Parents should ask at every visit, ‘Did you check my child’s blood pressure, and is it O.K.?’”

Rao points out that parents need to play an active role in monitoring the health of their children and be responsible enough to spend more time with their children to help them live a healthy lifestyle.

According to the Center for Disease Control, one of the leading causes of obesity among children is the increase of consumption of processed and junk food and sugary beverages.

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