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Child Obesity and its Prevention |
Article Submitted by: peterson bran
Wednesday, 05 August 2009
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Obesity is considered the most common dietary crisis faced by a lot of Americans today. Both infants and children are not exempted from this grave health threat. This condition often happen when they are taking more calories than their small bodies can use. Like adults, this puts them in a very high risk of other health complications. Prevention and early detection is highly advised, since parents are mainly responsible for their child's health. A child is considered obese of his/her weight is significantly over the ideal weight for his/her age and height. The most common symptoms of child obesity include disproportionate appearance of facial features, adiposity in the breast area among boys, unusually large abdomen and exceptionally small external genitals for males. Puberty may also occur earlier in obese children. The following are strategies for the prevention of child obesity and bringing a child down to a healthy weight. 1) Give children opportunities and encourage them to be involved in physical activities such as playing sports, hiking, dancing or even martial arts. It's also important that parents are involved on certain times while still allowing their children to accomplish tasks on their own and with a peer group. This allows interaction that children need to learn from. Remember that low physical activity is one of the causes of child obesity. So encourage exercises to at least 20 to 30 minutes a day. 2) A simple and very effective strategy in the prevention of child obesity and weight loss is walking and cycling. Encourage walking or biking to school or other near destinations instead of driving a short distance. Families might enjoy nightly walks around the neighborhood or brisk walks towards the park. 3) Limit the time in front of the television to an hour a day. This is not only prevention of child obesity but it is also for the good of a child's mental health. 4) Choose a sensible diet. Encourage children to eat fresh fruits, vegetables whole grains and other low-fat foods. Do not allow fast food, high-calorie and high fat meals or even snacks. Of course, the occasional treat is fine. Just don't do it everyday. 5) Keep track of the child's height and weight in order to be able to compare them with normal and healthy measurements. Obesity among children can be traumatic. It causes social stigma, which makes children withdrew from socializing with their peers. Children may develop a poor self-image of them and continue to harbor thoughts of not being liked at all. Because society views obesity as something negative and unwanted, obese children are incapacitated to interact with children their age. They tend to shy away from children's group activities. Their ability to think creatively is hampered, thus they become too dependent. They prefer staying at home than spending time with their friends. These scenarios may already be early signs of depression. Any indication of depression among children is alarming, which must be corrected right away. Child obesity and depression seemed to be inseparable. Regardless of which comes first obesity and depression should not be taken for granted. Statistics from health organizations show that today more children are suffering from depression and obesity or both. Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com |
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