VOA慢速英语：美国医生提供儿童肥胖新指南

A new recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics, says doctors should treat childhood obesity aggressively.

美国儿科学会的一项新建议称，医生应该积极治疗儿童肥胖症。

Obesity is a word used to describe severely overweight people.

Obesity用来形容严重超重。

In the past, many doctors thought children would grow out of bad eating habits. They used the method of "wait and see" to decide what to do. But the new guidelines say obese children should undergo operations or take medications to reduce their weight. Both actions, the doctors' group said, should reduce the amount of food children can eat.

在过去，许多医生认为孩子会从不良的饮食习惯中成长。他们用“观望”的方法来决定该怎么做。但新的指导方针说，肥胖儿童应该接受手术或服用药物来减轻体重。医生小组表示，这两项行动都应该减少儿童的食物量。

The problem of being overweight affects over 14 million American children. Doctors say carrying extra weight often results in lifelong health problems. Children can develop high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.

超重问题影响了1400多万美国儿童。医生表示，超重往往会导致终身健康问题。儿童可能患高血压、糖尿病和抑郁症。

The new guidelines recommend weight loss drugs for children as young as 12 and operations, or surgery, starting at 13.

新指南建议12岁儿童服用减肥药，13岁开始手术。

Ihuoma Eneli is a doctor who co-wrote the report containing the new guidelines. Eneli disagrees with the old guidelines. She said, "waiting doesn't work." She said doctors usually see "a continuation of weight gain and the likelihood that [children will] have obesity in adulthood."

伊霍马·埃内利是一名医生，她与人共同撰写了包含新指南的报告。埃内利不同意旧的指导方针。她说，“等待是没有用的。”她说，医生通常会看到“体重继续增加，以及(儿童)成年后肥胖的可能性。”

Eneli is the director of the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. She said the drugs or surgery should go along with life changes. That means children need help choosing better foods and finding ways to exercise more.

埃内利是俄亥俄州哥伦布市一家医院健康体重和营养中心的主任。她说，药物或手术应该随着生活的改变而改变。这意味着孩子们需要帮助选择更好的食物，找到更多锻炼的方法。

Dr. Sandra Hassink was the other doctor who wrote the report. She works for the American Academy of Pediatrics and is the medical director for the Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight. Hassink said the report offers pediatricians a different way to think about obesity. In the past, she said, doctors sometimes thought of obesity as a "personal problem," or failure.

桑德拉·哈西克医生是撰写报告的另一位医生。她供职于美国儿科学会，是健康儿童体重研究所的医学主任。哈西克说，这份报告为儿科医生提供了一种不同的方式来看待肥胖问题。她说，在过去，医生有时认为肥胖是“个人问题”或失败。

Children are considered obese if their body mass index, or BMI, is higher than 95 percent of children of the same age. BMI is a measure of body size based on a person's height and weight.

如果儿童的体重指数(BMI)高于同龄儿童的95%，则他们被视为肥胖。BMI是根据一个人的身高和体重来衡量身体大小的指标。

She said the weight loss tools described in the report should be thought of in the same way as other treatments for health problems. She compared it to prescribing an inhaler for someone who has asthma. Asthma is a medical condition that causes people to have trouble breathing. An inhaler supplies medicine that opens a person's lungs. In the same way, the drugs the doctors talk about in their guidelines help a person to eat less food, which will help them lose weight.

她说，报告中描述的减肥工具应该与其他治疗健康问题的方法相同。她把它比作给哮喘患者开吸入器。哮喘是一种导致人们呼吸困难的疾病。吸入器提供打开人肺部的药物。同样，医生在指南中提到的药物可以帮助人们少吃食物，从而帮助他们减肥。

Semaglutide is the drug described in the report. It started as a diabetes treatment. But a version of semaglutide called Wegovy recently received approval as an obesity treatment for children 12 and older.

塞马鲁肽(Semaglucide)就是报告中描述的药物。它起初是一种糖尿病治疗药。但是一种名为Wegovy的塞马鲁肽最近获得批准，用于12岁及以上儿童的肥胖症治疗。

The New England Journal of Medicine reported that teenagers have used the drug and reduced their BMI by an average of 16 percent.

据《新英格兰医学杂志》报道，青少年使用这种药物，体重指数平均降低了16%。

Dr. Claudia Fox is a weight management doctor at the University of Minnesota. When Wegovy received approval in late December, she started prescribing it to teenagers.

克劳迪娅·福克斯医生是明尼苏达大学的体重管理博士。Wegovy在12月下旬获得批准后，她开始给青少年开处方。

Fox said the drug helps her patients have a "possibility of even having an almost normal body mass index." She called the results "a whole different level of improvement," compared to other treatments.

福克斯表示，该药物帮助她的患者“甚至有可能拥有几乎正常的体重指数”。她称，与其他治疗相比，该结果“改善程度完全不同”。

Justin Ryder is a doctor who researches obesity for a children's hospital in Chicago. He said the drug helps the brain and the stomach communicate. "And," he said, "helps you feel more full than you would be (without it)."

贾斯汀·赖德是芝加哥一家儿童医院研究肥胖症的医生。他说，这种药物有助于大脑和胃的沟通。“而且，”他说，“有助于让你有饱腹感。”

While children are losing weight because of the drug, it is hard to get. There are two reasons: there is a production shortage, and more doctors are offering it to their patients. Semaglutide is now popular because people on social media have lost weight using it.

尽管孩子们开始可以用药物而减肥，但现实当中很难得到。有两个原因：生产短缺，越来越多的医生向他们的病人提供这种产品。塞马鲁肽现在很流行，因为人们在社交媒体上使用它减肥了。

Some doctors, however, worry that not every overweight child is a good candidate for the drug. Dr. Robert Lustig studies children's health at the University of California in San Francisco. He said he wants to be sure people do not prescribe the medication "willy-nilly."

然而，一些医生担心，并不是每个超重的孩子都适合服用这种药物。罗伯特·卢斯蒂格博士在旧金山的加利福尼亚大学研究儿童健康。他说，他希望确保人们不会“随意地”使用这种药。

Dr. Stephanie Byrne is at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Byrne said she still wants to see more research on how semaglutide affects many different children.

斯蒂芬妮·拜恩医生就职于洛杉矶的锡达西奈医学中心。拜恩说，她仍然希望看到更多关于塞马鲁肽如何影响许多不同儿童的研究。

But, she said, she is glad pediatricians are starting to think differently about obesity.

但是，她说，她很高兴儿科医生开始对肥胖有不同的看法。

"I definitely think this is a realization that diet and exercise is not going to do it for a number of teens who are struggling with this," she said.

她说：“我非常肯定这种认知，即饮食和锻炼对许多正在挣扎的青少年来说是行不通的。”。

I'm Dan Friedell.

丹·弗里德尔报道。