Helping Children Overcome Obesity

          Ten Year old Helen, a pupil of Haviborah Secondary school in my community is obese, and her mom says the fight over her weight started when she was a toddler. Her mom who is slim and tall reveals how she has tried to curb Helen ravenous eating habits but to no avail.

       She said my Husband and I are not fat although my mother was a bit on the fat side. I’m not very knowledgeable in that area of genes and DNA, but I know that my daughter’s challenges with obesity are because she finds it hard to control what she eats. I’m really pained about her weight.

       “I couldn’t allow my daughter to starve. But I knew I had to do something. So, she tried getting a nutritionist, someone has to monitor her food intake. After sometime the man gave up on her, I have decided to leave the matter, hoping that she would lose the body fat as she grows older,” she said

      Obesity is a condition where a person has excess fat that has accumulated to the extent that it may have a negative effect on your health, thus parent should balance the calories their child eats and drinks with the calories used through physical activity and normal growth.

Getting  your child involved in Physical activity has a great deal of effect on your Child obesity but, most children feel tired and misinterpret your caring nature for hate or punishment, making it difficult to control her weight.

Then try making their favourite meals healthier and focus on reducing calorie-rich temptation is the best measure.

Avoid using food as a comfort measure: this is one mistake parent make. Whenever a parent wants his or her child to do something or behave in a certain way, they offer the child food. That attitude is wrong especially to Obese Children.

            A Lot of Fruits and vegetables should be incorporated into the diet of children to avoid weight. During meal time provide plenty of vegetables, fruits and whole grain products for your child. Also include Low-Fat or non-fat milk or dairy Products, Fish and Beans for protein. Beans is extremely rich in protein, encourage your child to love beans. When serving their meals, serve reasonable sized portions.

According to experts, cooking at home allows one to choose healthy ingredients and control portion sizes.

Children also enjoy fizzing and sweet drinks, they don’t enjoy drinking water but encourage your child to drink lots of water and limit sugar sweetened beverages

Another note to parents with obese children should put a limit to their children’s television viewing time. There is a direct relationship between the amounts of time spent watching T.V and degree of weight gain, this habit is also common with adults. You can sit in front of a T.V and finish a packet of biscuit quickly. T.V Viewing can directly cause obesity through replacing your physical activities.

         Childhood Obesity is a complex health challenge that is due to several factors, some of which are genetic, lack of activity, improper food choices or a combination of two or more of these factors. Sadly Overweight children are at a high risk of becoming overweight adolescents and adults, placing them at risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes later in life. Children need about 60 minutes of physical activities a day and it does not have to happen all at once.

Encourage your child to join in sports and other moderately intense activities like jumping rope, playing soccer, swimming and dancing.

  

Children grow at different rate at different times so it is not always easy to tell if a child is overweight, Body Mass Index uses height and weight measurement to estimate how much body fat a child has and can be used to screen for weight and obesity problems from the age of two. However BMI may be a good indicator, it may not be a perfect measure of body fat and can be misleading in some situation. 

"Childhood Obesity isn't some simple discrete issue. There's no one because we can pinpoint. There's no one program we can find to make it go away. Rather, it's is an issue  that touches on every aspect of how we live and how we work - Former First Lady, United States, Michelle Obama"