Modern Day Childhood Obesity

The fast pace and ‘junk’ culture of modern life is having a detrimental effect on our children. At school, they are overburdened by books and frequent assessments; at home, limitless choice of entertainment leaves them completely overwhelmed and uncertain about the world beyond their front door. Families spend more time eating out than eating healthy home cooked meals which results in children eating a lot of unhealthy food that contains fat and carbohydrates. Unhealthy eating habits and too little or no physical activity in most children have resulted in childhood obesity.

The epidemic of childhood obesity is frightening. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey the childhood obesity statistics shows that roughly 16 % of children and adolescents ages 6-19 years are overweight. In recent years there is dramatic increase in overweight children in the United States. Over the last two decades, this number of overweight children has nearly doubled. Therefore so many health experts talk about the childhood obesity epidemic. With obesity also come a lot of other problems. Apart from the unpleasant aesthetic appearance, many serious health problems develop as a result of obesity. Obese children suffer from depression and related self esteem issues leading to depression. As these habits are established in early childhood, work to prevent obesity should begin early. As a parent, you should help your child get rid of their weight problems. You should focus on the eating habits and physical activities of your kids.

Some tips for parent to help their overweight children:

Determining if your Child is Overweight

Since the children grow in unpredictable spurts, it is very difficult to assess the obesity in them. It should be done by using the child’s height and weight relative to his previous growth history by some health care professional. As the bodies of children are growing and developing, therefore weight loss is not a right approach for most young children

Tips to parents to help treat Overweight Children:

• Children learn from their parents so it becomes imperative that parents have healthy eating habits and do a lot of physical activity. The most important strategy for preventing obesity is to encourage physical activity in any form (play, exercise, physical work) for at least 60 minutes on most days.  You should encourage your kids to play outside everyday. You should enjoy physical activities as a family, like a family walk with kids, play sports like baseball/soccer with your kids or hiking/cycling on weekends.
• Modern day kids are glued to electronic gadgets most of the time, there is a need to decrease the amount of screen time to less than two hours a day, including time they spent on the computer, watching TV or playing video games.
• Encourage your kids to drink water and skimmed milk and avoid aerated cold drinks which contain many calories.  Though milk is essential for all kids since it is a very good source of calcium but it also contains fat and can be a problem for your obese kid.
• Do not set your overweight children apart rather involve the whole family and work together to change the family’s physical activity and eating habits. Eat together as a family as frequently as possible. You should not put restrictions on what your child eats rather work as a family, make some simple rules….eat fast food once a week only……include an extra vegetable or fruit in dinner…eat regular three meals a day- breakfast, lunch and dinner. A regular intake of healthy diet will ensure your kids fitness.
• Another common factor which leads to obesity in children is the size of the meals that are too large. Encourage your kids to know that they need to stop eating when their stomach is full. This will definitely have a positive impact on your kids’ fitness.

Children are at risk for obesity now more than ever before. As a parent you must help your kid deal with the weight issue which might lead to major health problems in future.