Lately the worldwide problem of child obesity is more and more prominent in all the news media. Obesity in a child can aggravate the risk for more child health issues 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. Research has unfortunately shown that obese children has a much higher risk than other people to turn into obese adults.

Despite all the above, 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. Be sure not to force your kids to eat more than they feel like at mealtime, 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. Your kid will acquire abnormal eating behaviours if you are going to be constantly fussing about food intake.

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, watching television is obviously going to reduce physical activities by the child, 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 are thinking that your child weighs more than his or her ideal weight and that there is a risk of obesity, consult with a physician as soon as you can, to ensure that obesity is halted quickly and effectively. It is not really necessary for expecting mothers to eat for two persons, too much food while you are pregnant just dramatically increases the possibility that both you and your unborn child will in future become obese. The young infant must be breastfeeded for at least one year. With your infant still very young, there should be strong emphasis on fruits, grains and other fresh produce while closely watching to see if the child is really hungry before being fed.

If you note that there is a high risk that your child may become obese, try using low fat milk instead of the richer variety. Avoid cane sugar and snacks that contain excessive fat, because they are very high in calories. For kids that are still of school going age, you must enforce rules as to how much time can be spent each day watching television, snacks may only be of the healthy variety, food treats will be allowed only occasionally and generally good food habits must be maintained.

The child obesity problem does not remain static, it increases with each year that passes and, since 1981, there has been a dangerously high increase. The childhood 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.

Be Sociable, Share!

Tagged with: • • • • •

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!