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 GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico (AP) - The gym routine for 11-year-old Daniel Alvarado mixes music and games with jump ropes and stationary bikes. But like the other children sweating through workouts, he doesn't come just for fun. He is following doctor's orders.
The apple-cheeked boy, diagnosed last year with high cholesterol, is among a generation of Puerto Rican children struggling with obesity and related diseases, once rarely seen among young people. Studies show 26 percent of youngsters here are obese, worse than on the U.S. mainland where the figure is estimated to be 18 percent.
"If we don't do something now, this will be the first generation that will die before their parents," said Waldert Rivera-Saez, an assistant secretary of health in Puerto Rico, where doctors report such problems as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease among the young.
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