LOS ANGELES (The New York Times News Service) -- While many girls her age spend weekends at the mall slipping into the latest fashions, 12-year-old Miny Ojeda avoids shopping for clothes.

At 5 feet tall and 210 pounds, there aren't many styles that fit or flatter the sixth-grader. So she spends hours on the couch -- doing homework or watching television. When boredom sets in, she often heads to the refrigerator or goes outside where she might buy Flamin' Hot Cheetos from an ice cream vendor or the latest food she's seen advertised, such as Hershey's new Take Five candy bar.

Like millions of other American adolescents -- an estimated 16 percent of the nation's young -- Ojeda is losing the battle against childhood obesity. The condition has already cost children their health, with an unprecedented rise in type 2 diabetes.

Obesity is also linked to depression, sleep apnea, high blood pressure and poorer academic performance.

"It scares me," said Ojeda, who has been warned she is dangerously close to getting type 2 diabetes. "People treat me like I am 'special,"' she said, gesturing quotes around the word.

The rate of childhood obesity has tripled over the last 30 years among youngsters ages 6-11 and has doubled for those ages 2-5 and 12-19, according to the National Institute of Medicine.

Health experts say kids are gaining weight the same way they always have -- consuming more calories than they burn.

The problem these days is that there are many more calories out there and fewer opportunities to burn them. Time allocated to physical education classes and outside play are dwindling as children are increasingly spending their free time with the television, video games and online.

Ojeda dreads physical education classes at school. Running makes her throat tighten and she can't breath well. She falls behind other students, overwhelmed by a sense of futility.

"I feel like I was nobody, like I was just there," she said.

Nobody teases her outright, she said, but there are times she's been excluded from games or classmates' conversations.

Often ostracized by peers, it's common for overweight children to suffer from low self-esteem, experts say. Taunts from bullies or even harassment from authority figures can give way to hopelessness, even depressive and suicidal thoughts.

"A lot of kids will come in and talk about being called names like fatty, gordo (Spanish for fat), elephant or hippo," said Samantha Persoff, a mental health specialist for Kidshape, a nutrition and counseling program for overweight children and their families.

"Some of them will get into arguments. Others feel bad and eat more; some will speak up but more often than not they don't know how to cope with it. They just feel bad."

A 2003 study published in the journal Pediatrics linked chronic obesity in children to depression and other disorders.

But author Sarah Mustillo, a researcher at Duke University's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, says it's difficult to figure out which comes first -- depression or obesity.

"What we don't know is if obesity increases the risk of depression or depression increases the obesity or if they are both caused by a third factor -- that's entirely possible," she said.

Either way, health officials say they have noted a relation.

Carmen Mikhail, director of the eating disorders clinic at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston recorded more than 400 overweight children coming into the clinic. More than half of those children scored clinically depressed on a survey.

"It's pretty alarming," she said. "The implications are that we are not only going to have to treat obesity but we are going to have to treat depression as well."

But reining in the epidemic will take more than just treating the depression, said Dr. Francine Kaufman, director of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and the author of "Diabesity," a riveting look at the rapid rise of obesity and its cost.

"Yes, we have got to help people make behavior choices but then we have to have an environment in which those choices can be made," she said.

"And it has to be done at the level of the community, school, work place and home. If not, there is not much reason to believe that this epidemic won't increase."

Foremost for many experts is children's exposure to high-calorie, sugary products dressed in kid-friendly packages.

It's no coincidence food advertising dollars doubled over the last decade, as the number of overweight children skyrocketed.

"Children are basically being overwhelmed with messages to eat unhealthy foods; not only is the number of them striking but the number of arenas where they are being communicated," said Kelly Brownell, co-author of "Food Fight," a look at the food industry's influence over America's diet.

Health experts say it's easy to target youth because they're all in front of TVs, computer screens or handheld video games. Many children who live in poor neighborhoods are especially susceptible to advertisers because going outside is too dangerous.

About $15 billion was spent on food advertising in 2002, twice as much as 10 years earlier. With children watching an average 20,000 to 40,000 commercials a year -- three out of four of them advertising calorie-dense snacks, sugary foods, soft drinks and fast-food -- food companies hold powerful sway over their tummies.

Traditional television advertising isn't enough with the tech-savvy, iPod generation. Product placement in movies, television shows and video games is commonplace. Cell phones are expected to be the next frontier for advertisers. Already, products from Post cereals to Burger King tie-in computer games with their products, drawing in young consumers with cute animated characters.

"With the industry's influence, most parents simply can't control their children," said Brownell, also chair of the department of psychology at Yale.

Ojeda's mom, Juanita, often feels powerless. She snags chips from her daughter and scolds her for eating too much but sometimes she just lets it happen.

"I just say, it's bad for you to eat. I feel bad because she likes the food but she knows she shouldn't eat it," Ojeda said.

"Sometimes I want to do something that will work faster, better or more efficient. But I realize that it takes a long time to live better and change your life."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times News Service. All rights reserved.