Just because obese children are eating lots of food doesn’t mean they are eating enough nutrients. In the recently reported story that ran in the International Herald Tribune, Dr. Alastair McKinley, a gastroenterologist and chairman of a British malnutrition action group, was quoted and put it bluntly, “There’s a widely held misconception that if you’re fat you can’t be malnourished.”

The story further reports from the British Department of Health that “in the last five years the number of hospital-identified malnourished patients has risen by more than 40 percent, though experts say this is largely due to heightened surveillance rather than to a dramatic jump in incidence.”

There appears to be no evidence supporting a correlation between transcultural dietary practices, malnutrition and obesity. Rather, part of the blame goes to the rise in consumption of prepared and fast foods which contain only trace amounts of health building nutrients. What are you as a concerned parent doing to help your obese children?