Prevent Childhood from Obesity

There are a lot of things to consider when dealing with a touchy topic such as childhood obesity. The kids are touchy about it. They know what they look like and reminders aren’t always appreciated. The parents are touchy because they think it shows that they have bad parenting skills. The rest of society is touchy because they don’t necessarily want to do what it will take to stop the epidemic. Here are a few reasons we might want to take the touchy part out of it.

1) Bullies: Any child who is different is going to be a target for bullying. While more and more of our children are overweight, those who stand out in that category are going to be dead on bullseye. Being teased and tormented doesn’t help in any way, shape or form. In fact it’s harmful because the child may turn to food for comfort, making the problem worse.

2) Eating Disorders: People, especially children, want to fit in. Once a child has discovered that overeating is the cause (or one of them) for being out of the ordinary, they may try any number of methods to stop. Unfortunately, these methods can lead to bulimia, anorexia and other eating disorders.

3) Education: A miserable child may have difficulties concentrating on what he or she is trying to learn. The focus may be inward, which makes listening and focusing on classwork extremely difficult.

4) Health Issues: This is the most important reason we need to protect our children from weight related issues. Young people in their early twenties are having strokes and heart attacks. Children are being treated for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes in growing numbers. Being overweight can cut years off of a life, and cause life altering conditions.

5) Self Esteem: Even without bullying, self esteem is going to suffer. All it takes is a mirror and the television set. Knowing that you are over the weight limit can cause poor body image. This can lead to depression and sometimes to serious problems. Some may become cutters, and some have committed suicide over this issue.

6) National Security: Because of the health issues caused by obesity, many men and women who want to join the military are being turned away. This matter has been brought up on news reports, and it is something to pay attention to. If our military has trouble getting new recruits, how are we going to be able to defend ourselves?

If you will think about it, why are there so many obese children all over the world? Is it a by-product of our love for our children? Or perhaps is it negligence on our part towards their health? As the parents and grown-ups, we have the sole responsibility to take care of our children. Yes, there can be no denying that it’s everyone’s job to prevent childhood obesity. But the most important question becomes that of how we will do it and where to begin.

In case you are looking for the answers to such questions, find below the answers that you might just be looking for. Here are some of them to help you start preventing childhood obesity in your child:

1. Eating The Right Kinds Of Food
Since parents choose the foods that the children will eat; or better yet, pay for all the groceries and the restaurant bills, the authority on what to buy or what to order should be the parents themselves. Simply put, we as adults should have the last say as to what will go through our credit cards.

What’s more, since it’s everyone’s job to prevent childhood obesity, we must know the kinds of foods that we should include in their daily diet. These comprise of the protein-rich foods such as the dairy products cheese, butter, milk, nuts, fish, meat, vegetables and fruits, cereals and so many others. Instead of buying chips, buy your kids their favorite cereals. Instead of buying processed goods, buy the fresh ones. Get rid of canned goods and sodas and concentrate on making fresh fruit juices. Stop bringing your children to fast food restaurants to help them stay away from their most loved fries, nuggets, burgers, floats and sundaes.

2. Getting The Appropriate Exercise
Do not allow them to just sit the whole day playing with their DS or PS3 gadgets; or perhaps get glued on the couch to watch their most favorite shows. Because believe me, when they get glued there, every show becomes their favorite show!

Involve them in cleaning up their room especially during school breaks. That will give them a little sense of self-discipline. Ask them to walk your dogs on the park or the playground near your house. Or simply ask him to join you as you bike or run during weekends. There are in fact, a lot of activities that you can encourage your children to take if only you will do so. Swimming, basketball, badminton and so many other sports are just a few of the activities that will help them become more active; and thus, help them avoid getting obese.

3. Self-Discipline
Last but not least, teach your children about self-discipline because with it follows self-control. You do not have to be physically present all the time to tell your child what he needs to eat and not; or what he needs to do and not. Indeed, the responsibility is on our shoulders and there is no doubt that it’s everyone’s job to prevent childhood obesity. Are you doing a good job with your child? If not, now is the right time to start!

We are reaching a stage in our obesity epidemic where we have decreased the life expectancy of our children!

According to Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, we may see the first generation of children that will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Up to now, each generation has had a longer life expectancy than their parents because we keep learning about better diets, have more modern medicine and technology to help us – and we have more information about healthy aging. But this knowledge has met up with a different and newer phenomenon – which is fast food and processed food. And children are paying the price as more of them are becoming extremely obese and obese at younger ages.

The rate of obesity among children and adolescents in the U.S. has almost tripled since the early 1980s but at present it has stopped increasing. Is this good news? Well yes it’s good that the rate is no longer increasing – but it’s bad that the rate is stuck at about 32% – because it is that 32% of our children who are the ones with lowered life expectancies. That’s nearly one-third of the younger population!

Why is their life expectancy shortened? These obese children have high blood pressure and elevated blood cholesterol levels, which are early indicators for cardiovascular disease. And they are also developing diabetes. These are medical issues that had previously been seen in adult populations and this is what is putting them at risk of dying decades younger than normal-weight children of the same ages.

And to make it even worse, it’s not just bad physical and medical effects that come from obesity which are effecting the children; there are psychological effects as well. Obese children have lower self-esteem, negative body image and are prone to depression.

We want our next generation of adults to have had as normally happy a childhood as possible with their development as optimized as it can be – and yet we are not giving one-third of our children this chance. Instead, we are in a childhood obesity epidemic and shortening their lives.

This is a societal problem and cannot be solved solely by telling parents to “watch” what their children eat. We need the parents to act differently because children model their parents – which is why obese parents have obese children who turn into obese adults – if they live that long!

We need correct nutritional information and food education – and we need it now if we are to prevent childhood obesity and increase the life expectancy of children.

Obesity is on the rise; childhood obesity is on the rise. This means that years to come we will have both children and adults becoming obese, it is disaster in the making. We must fight childhood obesity if we want to give our children a bright and a healthy future. Let us not have children inheriting type two diabetes, hypertension and sleep apnea from us by the meals we feed them and the lifestyle we expose them to.

There are many way we can prevent child hood obesity. I would like to mention six practical ones that can be done by any parent, grand parent or care takers.

Get rid of all junk from your shopping list, your house and your car, even in your bags. All junk food is made to look so appetizing to the palate and when we see it, we want it. However if the food is not there, then we will have to do with what is available. Fill your pantry with colorful fruits and vegetables. Display the fruits at a child’s reach all washed and ready to eat. Clean all vegetables that can be used as a snack, cut them into small pieces and keep them in the fridge where a child can easily reach.

Feed your child six small meals all through the day. Have a healthy breakfast option first thing in the morning, a smoothie is always a great place to start. Do not force the child to eat, just make the food available when the child is hungry. If you force your child to eat then they will always eat everything on their platter even if it is not healthy. You want to avoid that.

Serve small portions of food. Do not have a large plate full of food for the child, small size is healthy and encourages self control.

Cook food at home. When you eat outside, often you will be tempted to buy soda and fried foods. If you cook from home, you will use what you have, and making french fries at home is hard. Home cooked food is fresh, tastes better and it encourages familiarity in the home.

Let the children help you prepare the meals. It works like magic, if the children help in meal preparation they own the meal, they feel like they did it and they will always eat it. They can cut the vegetables, add spices, taste the salads for seasoning, they can add fruits in the blender for the smoothies and they can run the blender. Safety is paramount but with your watch, they can help a lot and stay healthy.

Finally let the children play. Creativity in playing will make the children do more and get more from their playing. You do not have to tell them what to do, the children can always come up with what something to get them moving. When I say play, I do not mean video games, computer games or TV games. I mean, them getting outside or in their room and finding out ways to play, to run, to compete, even to fight. It is healthy for them. Buying children all the toys is killing their creativity and making them obese.