Kidney stones in kids?

Yes, and in rapidly growing numbers.

Why? Crappy diet is the easy — and true — answer. Specifically, salt is a major culprit, followed by obesity.

If you’re not paying good attention to your child’s diet, if you have children at home, read the full story and get a wake-up call.

Fat teens make for fatty livers

Which then makes for early-life liver transplants. This is NO JOKE/

Is this child abuse? Criminal child abuse? Scroll down for my thought.

Per the story, many of today’s obese teens may need a new liver by their 30s or 40s. The American Liver Foundation estimates from 2-5 percent of American children over age 5, nearly all of them obese or overweight, have the condition called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease that lies behind this.

How bad is it? In St. Louis, Dr. Jose Derdoy, head of liver transplants at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis, said he’s treated a 15-year-old, 530-pound boy and many others with the condition.

Yes, genes have some influence on our weight, but …

DO NOT TELL ME a 15-year-old hits 530 pounds because of genes.

Not a slim American around

In 40 years, that is. At that time, all Americans could be overweight.

Some food for thought, if you will:

“We are terribly, ominously off-course,” says Dr. David Katz, co-founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center. “To close the gap, we need to fix everything that’s broken — from neighborhoods without sidewalks, to the high price of produce, to food marketing to children, to misleading health claims on food packages, to school days devoid of physical activity and school cafeterias devoid of healthful offerings. The list goes on and on.”

Others cite individual responsibility for diet and lifestyle habits. Dr. Neal Barnard says dietary modification could be a crucial step in solving the problem.

“U.S. eating habits are nowhere near where they should be,” he says. “The average American eats 50 pounds more meat and 20 pounds more cheese per year, compared to the 1960s. ... I would strongly encourage Americans to adopt more vegetarian meals.”

Now, assuming he has a whole-grains focus, I agree.

Beyond that, it’s intellectual laziness. Foods have been labeled with at least basic health information for what, 30 years or more?

And, intellectual laziness by parents is hurting their own innocent children.

If this prediction becomes true, it’s in part because obesity problems may start as young as 2 years old.

Bisphenol-A linked to obesity too

The more you read about BPA, the more there is, tentatively at least, not to like.

BPA, whether through its hormone mimicry work or through other means, appears to be contributory to the rise in developed-world obesity. Given that it has been in plastic bottles for baby formula nursing for a number of years, this is certainly plausible.

“We are calling this an emerging hypothesis,” Jerry Heindel of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said. “Most of the data is in animals and we want to develop some biomarkers that could be used in humans.”

Beyond that, we’re still in the early stages of determining how chemical interactivity has additional side effects.

Excessive school bus stops contribute to child obesity

I live in DeSoto, a south Dallas suburb, in an apartment complex. There’s another complex adjacent to mine.

I stopped by my place last Friday afternoon, after going to the bank and before heading back to work.

Buses stopped in front of both apartment complexes, a whole 15 yards apart.

No wonder kids are obese.