More than 1 in 5 young people ages 12 to 19 in the U. are considered obese based on BMI, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kids with obesity face higher rates of weight-related disease later in life, experts say. By the time Emmalea Zummo entered the study, her weight had shot up to pounds.

The year-old from Jeannette in western Pennsylvania had been struggling with weight gain related to a hormonal condition called polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, for years. My body would just get used to the extra exercise, get used to the new diet and the weight would come back.

When the opportunity came to participate in the study, Zummo jumped at it. She lost more than 70 pounds.

The average weight of the participants was pounds, and made it to week 68; got the medication plus lifestyle intervention, and 62 received the lifestyle intervention only.

In addition to the weight loss, the drug reduced some cardiovascular risk factors, including waist circumference and bad cholesterol.

The teens also reported notable improvement in their quality of life. There were some side effects, including nausea, which appeared to diminish as the teens got used to the medication.

There is another drug approved for use in adolescents with obesity. Eduardo Grunvald, medical director of the Weight Management Program at the University of California, San Diego. Zhaoping Li, a professor of medicine, Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair in Human Nutrition, and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Long-term follow-up data on people who have been taking the medication for diabetes shows that people have gained weight, Li said. Linda Carroll is a regular health contributor to NBC News.

She is coauthor of "The Concussion Crisis: Anatomy of a Silent Epidemic" and "Out of the Clouds: The Unlikely Horseman and the Unwanted Colt Who Conquered the Sport of Kings.

Formerly, she assisted Robert Bazell, Chief Science Correspondent for NBC News, for 17 years until his retirement. In her role as mother of five children, grandmother to 11, daughter in-law of an elderly woman, and an active member in her community, she has a front —row seat to the myriad of health issues that confront people today.

IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. SKIP TO CONTENT. NBC News Logo. Overall, the group that read the exposés chose fewer junk food snacks and selected water over sugary sodas the next day. We thought it could be the main reason why no one has been able to get teenagers to change their eating habits in a lasting way.

To see whether they could prolong the effects, researchers tested the intervention on a new group of eighth graders. Researchers found that teens who participated in the marketing exposé intervention made healthier eating choices for the rest of the school year — three months.

The effects were particularly impressive among boys, who reduced their daily purchases of unhealthy drinks and snacks in the school cafeteria by 31 percent, compared with the control group. Although, like boys, girls experienced a more negative immediate response to junk food after the exposé intervention, their daily cafeteria purchases were similar whether they read the exposé or the traditional health education material.

If that is the case, researchers still suggested the exposé intervention for girls because it achieves similar results with less risk of body shaming. Because so many social problems, from education to risky behavior, have their roots in the teen years, this study paves the way for solutions to some of the thorniest challenges for promoting global public health.

Copy link.

The successful high-protein snack was a soy pudding containing 26 grams of protein and 6 grams of far per 27 grams of carbohydrates. Its effects were compared against a high-fat snack containing just four grams of protein and 12 grams of fat per 32 grams of carbohydrates, and also to those of having no snack, according to the study.

Both snacks were more effective than no snack at curbing the teens' appetite, yet the high-protein snack edged out the other. What's more, the high-protein snack led the teens to choose more protein-rich foods and less fatty foods at mealtime at a greater rate than the high fat snack and the absence of a snack.

The high-protein soy pudding snacks used in the experiment are not available to the public, although similar high-quality protein sources exist and should elicit similar benefits, according to Leidy.

High-protein soy snacks include soy milk and baked tofu sticks and almonds, pumpkin seeds, edamame as well as eggs are all foods high in protein. We welcome your comments. Bell Media reviews every comment submitted, and reserves the right to approve comments and edit for brevity and clarity.

Please be advised: Comments are moderated and will not appear on site until they have been reviewed. Comments are not open on some news articles; Bell Media reserves the right to choose commenting availability.

Thank you for following these guidelines and contributing your thoughts. You are contributing to debate and discussion, and helping to make this website a more open place.

Relaxnews Published Saturday, May 23, PM EDT. Reddit Share. Related Stories Teen suspended after selling non-diet pop from his locker.

Obesity study finds cardio plus weight training may be best for teens. Report an error Editorial standards and policies Why you can trust CTV News. If you have trouble reading the characters in the picture, click it to see a new one. Guidelines Preference is given to commenters who use real names.

Stay on topic and be concise. Stimulate debate. Offer new information. What not to do: We will not publish comments that are profane, libelous, racist, or engage in personal attacks.

We screen for comments that seek to spread information that is false or misleading. We will not publish: Comments written that are poorly spelled; or are written in caps; or which use strange formatting to get noticed. If you're using an alias, make sure it's unique.

We will not publish comments that link to outside websites. More Health Stories. fertility industry. A case of bubonic plague has been diagnosed in the U. Here's what Canadians should know.

Fewer than half of people support assisted death exclusively for mental illness: poll. What parents need to know about nicotine pouches that have drawn concerns in Canada.

FDA approves first treatment for severe frostbite. An Oregon resident was diagnosed with the plague. Here are a few things to know about the illness. But Breidbart had few other choices for her adolescent patients. That changed in late , when the U.

But the approval was also somewhat controversial. Wegovy—an injected semaglutide medication, like its even buzzier sibling Ozempic —slows digestion and mimics a hormone that regulates appetite, leading people who take the drug to eat far less than before they started taking it. For some people, the idea of putting still-growing kids on an appetite-suppressing drug, potentially for life, raised alarm bells about physical and psychological long-term effects.

kids and teenagers with obesity, who may experience fatty liver disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and sleep apnea linked to their disease. Some people even get prescriptions at medical spas or online. But Dr. In its latest guidelines for treating pediatric obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics AAP says weight-loss medications, including semaglutide, can benefit children with severe obesity, particularly those who have already developed complications related to their weight.

Medication should always be accompanied by lifestyle changes, like nutrition and exercise plans, and family and physician support, the guidelines say. Such guidelines help narrow down the potential patient pool. Plus, some insurers do not cover obesity treatments, and some semaglutide medications are currently in shortage.

As a result, both Hernandez and Dr. A separate analysis of data from the same trial, published in Obesity in May, found that almost half of the teens using semaglutide were no longer considered clinically obese after about a year.

About three-quarters of treated kids dropped at least one BMI category. Read More : What the Ozempic Obsession Misses About Food and Health. Those data are promising, but limited. The trial included only kids and lasted about a year, which raises questions about long-term safety and efficacy data.

Most people regain weight when they stop using semaglutide , so someone who starts the medication as a teenager might be on it for many decades. Suzie Jimenez, who is 49 and lives in Texas, started Wegovy about six weeks ago.

She hopes Wegovy could do the same for her year-old son, whose self-esteem and mental health have suffered due to weight gain. Some weight-loss interventions, such as dieting, are linked to eating disorders among young people—but other research finds that weight-loss efforts do not raise the risk of eating disorders if they focus on total health and are done with family support.