Nadeem The number one health crisis in American children is obesity and it is spreading like wildfire right before our eyes. Causes of childhood obesity are numerous and you might find some that are eye opening.
This is a hot and disturbing issue, so much so that First Lady Michelle Obama has taken the fight to prevent childhood obesity nationwide.
What is the definition of obesity? Very simply, it means having way too much body fat. It is putting more calories than the body needs and is able to burn off, period.
Any individual whose weight is 20% or more above normal weight is considered obese. Unfortunately, many children fall into this category these days.
Is parental neglect one of the causes of childhood obesity?
A number of doctors now feel that parents with obese kids are guilty of some form of abuse or neglect.
For starters, there’s dietary neglect: feeding a child too much food, or feeding food that is full of carbs, fat and sugar.
Some parents cater too much to their child’s sweet tooth, unmindful of serious health risks. Furthermore, parents enable the overweight child by not encouraging enough physical activity to burn off fat.
It really is puzzling when you see fit parents with obese children and wonder, “What’s wrong with this picture?” It seems like some parents take care of themselves, but neglect their overweight children.
Do you think that having a TV in every room is possibly one of the childhood obesity causes?
Yes! Surprised? Watching too much TV is a problem as it becomes a substitute for other healthy outside activities like swimming, biking or playing ball. A TV in every room, especially in the child’s bedroom, encourages the child to spend a lot of free time in front of a TV screen, when walking from one room to another.
Watching DVDs, TV, videos and playing video games are not only sedentary activities, but they also encourage constant snacking, mostly on unhealthy chips, cookies, candy and chocolate.
Fast Food Obesity in Children
The connection between childhood obesity and fast food has been widely acknowledged and undisputed by many experts in the health field.
Obviously, this childhood obesity epidemic didn’t happen overnight. It actually started in the 70’s when parents started to work more, resulting in less supervision over the children and their activities. Children started watching more TV and eating junk food.
Besides being inexpensive, a lot of fast food have an overabundance of fat, sugar, salt, starch – sounds like the components of a very tasty meal! Fact is, fat is indeed cheap. Besides, who has time or wants to labor over a hot stove? It is so much more convenient to order takeout or order in, or heat a frozen pizza at home.
With their commercial takeover, schools have long been serving kids fast food meals: burgers, fries, pizzas, soda and the like. These are easy to prepare and the children love them. And if that’s not doing enough harm, school vending machines are stocked with even more junk food.
Without a doubt, the consumption of fast food is one of the more harmful causes of childhood obesity.
CHILD OBESITY PREVENTION & SOLUTIONS *Bestsellers”
You can help your overweight child by educating yourself as much as possible. Here are some excellent books you can start with in your journey to help your child get healthy, and grow up to be the person he or she is destined to be.
These are bestsellers with great reviews. You just might want to read them all 🙂
