Obese children may not realize how weight can make their lives more complicated. They may have less time to live and learn.

From greater mental and physical deficiencies to a cut-off lifespan, added girth can create a variety of problems. Most striking to many researchers, though, is that children worry more about how they look and less with how they’ll live.

A study recently suggested that youths only worry about the effect their weight will have on their appearance and athletic performance. The International Food Information Council Foundation’s study of 158 subjects including families and teachers appeared in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Assn.

The study concentrated on 8- to 12-year-olds whose parents thought they were from normal weight to not significantly overweight. The data pointed out that children were mostly worried about “fitting in” and not being seen as “different.”

Plus, while kids thought having good health was nice, it wasn’t something consuming their thoughts. Most didn’t realize its benefits, and the survey suggested that many had negative connotations of being “healthy,” such as being forced to eat fruits or vegetables they didn’t like.

In those instances, though, at least the kids realize there might be some problem.

Weight tolerance

The Taft Counseling Center in Wichita Falls, Texas, sees about 10 severely obese kids during the year, executive director Walter Swinhoe said. Those youths are 40 to 50 pounds overweight.

About 50 to 60 percent of young clients are simply overweight, he said. Most surprising, many aren’t aware of the fact.

Parents can mislead youths by rationalizing or because family histories have helped normalize otherwise hefty traits, Swinhoe said. And as more overweight children enter school, the growing numbers can likewise shield youths.

Barbara Galyean, lead guidance counselor at Hirschi High School, remembers the kind of ostracism that overweight children endured several decades ago. But now things seem to have mellowed, with few students really expressing distress due to their weight.

“I can’t say that it really is a big issue. If it happens, I couldn’t tell you,” she said. “In my generation, we may not have been as tolerant but … I am seeing a lot of successful students who are overweight.”

So the data pointing to overweight children’s bleak outlook on life? “If that’s true,” she said, “they aren’t voicing that in anything but that paper.”

Such silence may hide other woes, based on some evidence.

Mental illness has gained greater attention recently. In April, a Yale University study of 106 youths age 5 to 18 years old reported that obese children rate their quality of life as low as young cancer patients on chemotherapy.

According to the International Food Information Council Foundation study, teachers said poor body images prompted several negative attitudes.

Overweight children seemed less involved in sports, less confident, less popular with peers and more pessimistic about their lives compared to children of normal weight, the teachers said.

Obesity-related ailments gaining the most attention have been diabetes and sleep apnea.

Warding off such problems begins less with the kids and more with the family, said Sabina Cotter, former diabetes educator at United Regional Health Care System in Wichita Falls.

“Each generation passes on their habits. Parents have to change their own habits as well as their children’s minds,” she said. “If parents aren’t willing to change, their children aren’t going to change.”