Childhood Obesity

Avoid child obesity for better life and better future

Our future is our children. It is our duty to guide them to have a healthy life. But now a days, developing the childhood obesity, especially in urban areas, has become a major public health issue in our country too.

What happened to us?

It is the most important question. At the past decades, childhood obesity was not a big issue. Most children lived happily. They maintained a balanced lifestyle with their education, sports and especially with the diets. They studied at the school, they ate healthy foods from their mom’s kitchen, and then they played the whole day outside with friends doing running, swimming, cycling, hiding, hiking etc. Some children are good runners, some are good swimmers, and some are good fighters. With the urbanization, busy lifestyles are headed. Most people migrated to urban areas and settle down. Due to high living costs, both parents have to go for jobs. And they got limited time to spent with their children, to cook for them and play with them. Since parents do not have time to prepare foods for their children. They buy cooked or instant meals from outside. Thus, fast foods, fatty foods and processed foods become more familiar to our children. Also, children get less time to play outside with their friends. They are forced to do more studies since their elementary classes. Thus, children are depressed with this house-hold environment. So naturally our children got adapt to inactive lifestyle with spending more time with play stations. As a result of these all, they become obese.

What is this childhood obesity?

It is a medical condition that affects children and teenagers. Obesity can describe as the accumulation of excess body fat that raises the body weight than from their ideal body weight.

Causes and treatments for obesity

Several factors can work together in-order to increase the risk of being obese. Major of them are eating habits, dietary patterns and physical inactivity. So, let’s see more about these causes.

• When considering dietary patterns, limited intake of fruits and vegetables, consumption of  food and beverages that are high in sugar and saturated fat on a regular basis such as fast food, candy, baked goods, and other sugary drinks, Consumption of refined grain products frequently such as white bread, breakfast cereals, bread, crackers are the factors, associated with childhood obesity. When shopping, parent should concentrate on buying more fresh fruits and vegetables, instead of going for more convenience sugary or fatty foods.

• Now a days, our children become sedentary with doing activities that don’t burn calories from body such as watching TV, playing video games, and chatting on the social media. But children should be encouraged to play games outside to keep them active. Let your child to do physically activities at least 1 hour for day with their friends or siblings.

• You should be noted that obesity has a genetic link also. Genetics and DNA have been found to be a contributing part in the causes of childhood obesity. So, if the family has obesity history, parents should pay more attention for their children to make their environment healthier.

The effect of childhood obesity

Obese child’s self-esteem and confidence can be affected by being bullied from other kids. As a result, these children can experience of depression. Further, they will have risk for serious health related issues; especially non-communicable diseases like diabetics, hypercholesteremia, high blood pressure, heart diseases in their future life stages.  

Prevention is better than cure

As parents, you can be a role model for your child. Firstly, parents should closely monitor their children, and have time to cook nutritious meals for their family. Instead of going for fast foods, processed foods or sweet sugary foods, you should cook fresh fruits and vegetables for them. You can go for easy preparation methods to save your time and improve your child appetite to healthy foods.

Finally, schools also have to play a major role in order to prevent the childhood obesity and promote healthy lifestyle. Therefore, teachers should educate their students about healthy eating habits consistently and encourage to do more sports and being physically active to ensure their current and future health.

By

DMDNB Thanayamwaththa.

Department of Applied Nutrition,

Faculty of Livestock, Fisheries & Nutrition,

Wayamba University of Sri Lanka