The International Pandemic Of Overweight Children Must Be Addressed Straight Away

January 27th, 2010 by author

Lately the child obesity rate is more and more prominent on the news. If a child is obese it can lead to serious health issues for the child like diabetes, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, skeletal disorders, sleep disorders and problems, psychological symptoms and gastro-intestinal problems. Such disorders can be expected to continue into adulthood. Recent studies have shown that if a child is obese it is extremely likely that adult obesity will follow.

Nonetheless, parents can easily impact on the lifestyle of their children and guide them to achieve a healthy lifestyle and remain healthy.

What is the role needed from parents to make a contribution to the prevention of obesity in their child? Parents must address the causes of child obesity. Parents must give their children a lot of attention and help them to feel wanted. Children that are neglected by their parents have a much higher likelyhood of obesity than their peers. Your kids should not be pressured into eating more than they want to during meals, all you will achieve is to train your child’s metabolic system to make your child eat more than he or she needs.

The amount of food eaten is not what is most important. It is much more important that the child must eat healthy food and then also get sufficient exercise to burn of the calories. If you worry too much about your child’s weight you are going to encourage eating behaviours that are abnormal.

Your child should not spend so much time in front of the telly. As your child spends more time in front of the TV so he or she will be more obese,TV obviously reduces physical activity, and then it naturally also reduces the body’s metabolism. Children also watch the commercials on television and it affect them, and they are encouraged to eat more junk food and drink soft drinks that will have one result only and that is increased weight.

If you can see that your kid weighs more than he or she should and is on the way to being obese, you should go to the doctor as soon as possible, and stop obesity in its tracks immediately. It is a myth that mothers to be have to eat for two people, too much food while you are pregnant just dramatically increases the possibility that both you and your unborn child will in future become obese. Your newborn should be breastfeeded for a period of not less than one year. While the child is still very small, a greater emphasis should be on fruits, grains and other fresh produce while closely watching to see if the child is really hungry before being fed.

If the risk that your child will become obese is high, try using low fat milk instead of the richer variety. Sugar and fat containing snacks must be avoided, because they are high in low nutritional value calories. If your kid is still at school, put in place steadfast rules as to how much they are allowed to watch television, snacks must be nutritious, food treats will be allowed only occasionally and generally good food habits must be maintained.

The child obesity epidemic is not static, it keeps on increasing with each passing year and, since the early eighties, there has been a dangerously high increase. The child obesity epidemic poses a great risk to our children’s children, and it must now be halted in its tracks all over the developed world.