How To Deal With The Global Child Fatness Wave

Lately the worldwide problem of a high child obesity rate is more and more prominent in all the news media. If a child is obese it can lead to serious health issues for the child like diabetes, dyslipidemia, heart health issues, lack of sufficient bone density, sleep problems, psychological symptoms and gastro-intestinal problems. These abnormalities will in all likelyhood continue into puberty and adulthood. Recent studies have shown that if a child is obese it is extremely likely that adult obesity will follow.

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 childhood obesity. Parents must give their children a lot of attention and help them to feel wanted. If your child is neglected by you there is an increased possibility of obesity compared to other children. 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. Of far more importance is that the child should eat properly and then get adequate exercise. 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. You will find that his or her weight is almost directly proportional to the time sitting motionless in front of the tv, 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 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 not really necessary for expecting mothers to eat for two persons, if you eat too much while you are pregnant there is a good chance that both you and your unborn child will 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 the risk that your child will become obese is high, you should consider using fat free milk instead of full cream milk. Avoid cane sugar and snacks that contain excessive fat, because they are very high in calories. If your kid is still at school, put in place steadfast rules as to how much they are allowed to watch 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 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 childhood obesity epidemic poses a great risk to our children’s children, it is now the time to stop it on a globewide scale.