YOUNG Australian children are growing so fat that doctors are removing their tonsils to help them breathe.

Overweight kids as young as 10 are developing "late onset'' diabetes that normally afflicts the middle-aged.

And medical specialists are treating 36-kilogram "waddling'' toddlers for obesity.



The Federal Government's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) wants parents to fight the flab by feeding children healthier food and making them do more exercise.

The NHMRC's draft new obesity guidelines recommend "weight maintenance'' - instead of weight loss - for fat children.

But one of the nation's three specialist centres for treating childhood obesity, the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, has warned the NHMRC that some kids are so obese they must lose weight through meal plans and exercise.

And Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said some parents do not even notice their children are overweight.



"There's a new norm once you get 25 per cent of children and 60 per cent of adults obese,'' he said yesterday.



"They look in the mirror and think they don't look too bad.''



Westmead's paediatric obesity staff specialist, Dr Shirley Alexander, said the hospital was treating toddlers as young as 18 months.



Some two-year-olds weighed 36 kilograms - three times the recommended body weight - and waddled rather than walked.



Dr Alexander said seven and eight-year-olds had been fitted with CPAP machines to help them breathe at night - while others had their tonsils removed to help them breathe.

And young children had been given hip operations because they were so heavy their joints gave out.



"We've got five, six and seven-year-olds with insulin resistance and 10-year-olds with Type Two diabetes,'' Dr Alexander said.

"It used to be 30 years ago you didn't see that until people were in their 40s, 50s and 60s.''

Dr Alexander said society had become "obesogenic''.

"We spend more time in cars, more time sitting on our bottoms watching screens, be it at work or homework or watching TV,'' she said.



"Bigger is becoming more of the norm now.''



The draft NHMRC guidelines state that "excessive'' physical activity - such as gym work or cardio training - "is thought to be detrimental to normal growth and puberty'' for kids.

But the Children's Hospital warns the statement is "somewhat misleading and could potentially discourage patients from activity and cause anxiety to parents''.



"Adolescents may benefit from youth-appropriate structured gym programs,'' it told the NHMRC.

"The message needs to be that any child or adolescent with severe obesity ... needs to be considered for referral and weight loss.''



The NHMRC's final obesity guidelines - the first update in a decade - are due for release mid-year.



Is your kid a couch potato?What the federal Health Department recommends for:

* babies - supervised floor-based play from birth.

* under-5s - physically active for at least three hours, spread throughout the day. They should not be sedentary or restrained for more than an hour at a time, unless sleeping.



* 5-12s - an hour a day of moderate and vigorous activity



* 12-18 - at least an hour a day of physical activity. Screen time - TV, DVDs or electronic games

*under-2s - none

*2-5 - no more than one hour a day.

*5-12s - no more than two hours a day.

*12-18s - no more than two hours a day for entertainment.

Originally published as Bigger kids 'becoming the norm'