These kids will die six years earlier than their normal weight counterparts. No, they are not likely to avoid the consequences by changing their ways as they grow up. In fact, more will join their ranks in adult years.

You don’t have to look far to find the reasons. Restaurants and fast food eateries are offering larger and larger portions and reasonable, healthy foods are not part of the hype in the McDonald's vs Burger King competition. Parents purchase these poor meals when the family eats out and often bring poor choices home from the supermarket. If parents bring home good choices, the kids will eat the good choices—-if nothing else is there to tempt them. They will complain but their body-mass index will improve.

A person’s body-mass index (BMI) is easy to calculate. Take your weight in pounds times 703 and divide by your height in inches squared. For example, if you are 5 foot 6 (66 inches) and weigh 155, your BMI is 25, that is, 155 times 703 divided by 4356 (66 x 66).

A BMI of 25 is right on the low end of the overweight window (25 to 30). The obese category is 30 and up. Those in the 25 to 30 range will die three years sooner than average; with a BMI over 30, life expectancy is reduced another 3 to 10 years. In 1994, 49 percent of American women and 59 percent of men had a BMI above 25, says the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We’ve been growing ever since.

Frequently, overweight and obese children are afflicted with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, lower joint pain and gallbladder surgery. All were rare in the doctor’s office 50 years ago.

Kids are not good at selecting their diet if the temptations at home are filled with too much sugar, too much meat and too much fat. If we put bad diets in front of them and leave them to their own choices, we are abusing their health, their happiness and their life expectancy. Don’t bring home any more bad food. Instead follow the advice of the latest studies concerning weight problems in the New England Journal of Medicine. They advise restricting meat portions in the weekly menu, providing fruits instead of candies, and offering water and fruit juices instead of soft drinks of no nutritional value. Take time to read labels for fat and sugar content. Sugar often exceeds 30 grams per cup in soft drinks when zero to four would be more appropriate for any child.

This is a challenge for parents. Government and Congress will not help. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) advocated a federal commission on childhood obesity to discuss prevention. It was not even given a chance for debate. We’ll have to do this ourselves.