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Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition. The extra pounds often start kids on the path to health problems that were once confined to adults, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Childhood obesity has risen to a point that it can be considered an epidemic, one who threatens to wipe out other improvements in children’s health and safety over the past three decades.
About 16% of American children between ages 6 and 19 are overweight or obese, a number that has tripled since 1980.
Most cases of obesity are simply caused by kids eating too much and exercising too little. Just like adults, children who eat more calories than their body needs gain too much weight.
Regular consumption of high-calorie foods, such as fast foods, baked goods and vending machine snacks, contribute to weight gain. If, in addition to consuming these foods, the child is generally inactive, choosing to spend her free time watching television or playing video games, she is even more likely to gain excess weight, because she doesn’t burn calories through physical activity.
According to the Mayo Clinic, one of the best strategies to avoid childhood obesity is to improve the diet and exercise levels of the entire family. It is the parents’ responsibility to buy healthy foods, prepare healthy meals and encourage their kids to be more active.
Children from low-income backgrounds are at greater risk of becoming obese. Poverty and obesity often go hand in hand because low-income parents may lack the time and resources to make healthy eating and exercise a family priority.
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I love this article!!
No one is to blame for our children’s eating habits but us, the parents.
When I was having my two girls ( who are now 4 and 7 ), I became so worried that my bad eating habits would effect them that my wife and I changed our approach to eating all together.
We started eating our veggies, rarely visited a fast food restaurant, and banned all sodas from our house. With a little bit of initial grumbling ( from me mostly ) it turned out to be a pretty easy path to take. There are so many other “healthy” foods out there to share that we have not looked back on our fast food with anything but disgust.
And, Lo and Behold, the kids have grown up knowing nothing about Happy Meals, or whether Coke tastes better than Pepsi… AND THEY DON’T CARE.
Any parents seeing their kids head in to troubled eating habits, I would suggest you take a good hard look at your own eating habits. I will bet you ten to one that they are just following the road you are leading them down.
@ YonHardisty: Had to laugh at “a bit of initial grumbling” - we went through the exact same process and my husband reacted the same.
“Do as I say, not as I do” simply doesn’t work. Modeling a behavior is the only way to make sure the kids do it too.