Defeat childhood obesity

In the last few years childhood obesity has shown to be an issue of critical and increasing importance. A little boy is considered obese if he exceeds his ideal weight by 25%; the threshold is set at 30% for little girls. A child’s ideal weight can be easily calculated on the base of BMI (body massive index). If you want to check your child’s weight you can visit the website: http://www.cdc.gov/ and write "BMI" in the search engine.

Childhood obesity is frequently a consequence of an unbalanced nutrition, more and more based on fat and caloric food, lacking in proteins and nutritive value. Children often eat casually and prefer snacks and soft drinks. Parents tend to buy ready-to-eat products rather than cook themselves with natural ingredients. Purchase decisions in our consumer society are influenced by marketing and misleading advertising, which affect nutrition and deploy its biggest effects on youth.

We lead an inactive life, too. We ride our children at school by car and drive to the workplace, regardless the health effects of a long walk. Our kids like to spend most of their time watching TV, playing videogames and eating junk-food, rather than go out and play.

We all know that genetic factors "weight heavily" too: the risk of becoming obese is 40% higher among children who have one obese parent. For this reason it is extremely important to educate children to eat correctly since the first years of life. Parents bear the responsibility of orienting the eating habits in the family and making their children develop a personal relationship with food, eventually keeping them on a slimming diet.

In this society of the "bite and flee" is essential getting together for lunch of dinner time.
So the primary target of the parents is to trasmetting to the children the right way to follow a healthy diet.

The first step to defeat the obesity is to change slowly and gradually our life-style and explaining the benefits we obtains by loosing weight.
For example: getting more energy, social respect, major safety and self-esteem.

The parents must also know that the obesity brings:
PREMATURE CONSEQUENCES as:
RESPIRATORY: apnea, sleeplessness and difficulties paying attention to homeworks or studies.
TIREDNESS: articular disturbs. Leggs crossed as a bow or X. Flat feet reduced mobility, articular pain.
DIGESTING APPARATUS DISTURBS: calculus stones in gallbladder
PSYCHOLOGICAL DISEASE: children usually make fun of fat friends and discriminate them, because they are awkward and tend not to take part in sports. Consequently, obese children feel often ashamed, lose confidence and self-esteem and prefer to spend most of their time at home, watching TV, eating chips and taking soft drinks.

EARLY PUBERTY: the obesity can cause early puberty in girls as:
1) Downy.
2) Heavy sweating.
3)Breast growth.
In such cases the specialist (endoctrinologist) will suggest lab. exams like:
1) Pelvic Ecography.
2) Left wrist X ray.
3) Blood exam. Hormonal dosage for glycemia to diabetes control.
4) Measuring the height and the weight for early growing.

LATE CONSEQUENCES: a child who has been obese in the infancy has more chance becoming obese in the adult-age and be exposed to the nature's disturbs:
CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE: high blood pressure.
MUSCOLAR SKELETAR: premature arthrosis.
METABOLISM TROUBLES: diabets, hypercolesterol.
FOOD TROUBLES: gastroenteric cancer.

All these consequences must spur parents to improve and make children’s lifestyle more healthy. If necessary, a specialist could provide psychological support and help kids to start this slow and difficult way.

A winning move to achieve the best results in the struggle against childhood obesity is to integrate psychological training with recreational and cultural activities, such as acting in theatre, cinema or courses which stimulate kids to experience their manual skills, like painting on ceramics, clay modelling, carving in wood…

Every children have a passion or inner interest and this can be a great opportunity to help them to express their personality. Never forget to support and trust them during their difficult change of eating habits. Children have a surprising interior strength: if their skills are correctly addressed, they are able to make a healthy and happy future come true.

This is the point of view of a mother who loves her children immensely. In this technologically advanced society everything evolves swiftly and we can’t take our time to meditate about what is really important in our life. I am firmly convinced that we have the duty to teach health principles to our children and improve the world, by rediscovering our origins and taking care of nature. Why don’t we start by nutrition, teaching our children to eat natural and genuine food?

Take action for healthy nutrition!!!

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