Surgery needed for 80,000 obese kids

Some 80,000 obese children in Ireland need surgical intervention to tackle their weight issues or they may not make it to adulthood, a doctor has warned.

Dr Sinead Murphy, a consultant paediatrician who specialises in childhood obesity, has told the Oireachtas committee on children and youth affairs that while measures targeting children’s behaviour works for some overweight young people, bariatric surgery is the only effective treatment for morbidly obese children.

“The problem with this is that there is a little bit of an attitude out there that these children will become obese adults, which indeed they will, and that then they will run into trouble. It’s important for us all to realise that we don’t actually need to wait until then. These children are in trouble now.”