Obesity has become an increasing serious public health concern in the 21st century. With the improvement of people’s well-being, children’s lifestyle and dietary habit have undergone significant changes, which are mainly characterized by increased pressure of study, accelerated pace of life, excessive energy intake and reduced physical exercise, resulting in an increasing number of children being overweight.
Why Does Childhood Obesity Occur?
Multiple factors will be lead to childhood obesity, such as nutritional, genetic factors, and psychological factors respectively.
1. Nutritional Factor: If the children usually eat too much and lack daily exercise, they are more likely to suffer from over-nutrition so as to result in excess fat in the form of triglycerides in the body and then lead to obesity.
2. Genetic Factor: When the children are exposed to the depressed or parental divorced environment for a long time, they are inclined to be unsociable and withdrawn. In this way, some of them will resort to eating binge as their way to release pressure, thus leading to childhood obesity.
3. Psychological Factor: If the immediate relatives of the children suffer from obesity, their offspring will also have a higher chance of getting overweight than others.
What Are the Effects of Childhood Obesity?
1. Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases:Obesity can induce diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypertension, etc, which will do great harm to children health.
2. Decreased Physical Fitness and Bone and Joint Lesions: Obesity can lead to excessive weight-bearing in children, with manifestations such as chest tightness and asthma after exercise. Excessive weight-bearing is also detrimental to bone growth, which can lead to femoral head slippage, fractures, flat feet and osteoarthritis.
3. Mental Health Issue: Excessive obesity can lead to low self-esteem in children, which is not conducive to their physical and mental development.
How to Prevent Childhood Obesity?
1. Diet: It is necessary to keep a regular and quantitative diet. Under the premise of ensuring the nutrition required for children’s growth, the total calorie intake should be controlled, and the diet with low fat, low sugar and high protein should be adopted.
2. Exercise:The time spent watching TV, playing with computers and cell phones should be limited, and encourage more outdoor exercise.
3. Lifestyle:Develop good habits and avoid staying up late and ensure enough sleep for the preschoolers. 9-10 hours for elementary school students and at least 8-9 hours for secondary school students.
