Obesity in Children on Rise

The trend that is being observed is that one child in three is now either overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. This ballooning of obesity in children has been alarmingly growing because with the many cutbacks in physical education and recess at American schools, and children not getting the nutritional guidance, the physical exercise that they desperately need is not being available to kids in schools where they spend most of their day time.

Obesity in children is of great concern as where wills this trend place U.S. health care in the years to come. There are very great chances that overweight adolescents are extremely likely to be obese adults. And this will result in numerous chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and several cancers and to the U. S government this will be a loss in cost of hundreds of billions in medical expenses and lost productivity.
Precautions that need to be take care to avoid this growing national health hazard, for influencing and taking necessary precautionary steps for taking care of health and weight of today’s youth.

• Limiting the time of the television and computer: A study was conducted of 192 third and fourth graders, which found that those who limited in front of screen time to one hour a day, kids were measurably leaner after nine months than those who watched as much TV as they wanted. Because this gives them time for playing outside, this in turn provides for some exercise.
• Schools to maintain recess and physical education programs: The trend in schools for cutting recess and physical education programs is alarming; as fewer than half of the nation’s schools offer physical education! So lobby for schools to have such programs and moreover they should allow kids to play during the recess and provide for healthy food in school.
• Encourage nutrition education: this is applicable to both at home and in school. Teaching children needs for balance diet its effects, learning about appropriate quantities and learning about the nutritional quality of foods. The teaching should be such that it focuses on teaching kids to make healthy choices for food rather than restricting foods.
• Be an active role model: to promote physical activity in children, you also should have good diet and lean figure. Also you can take active part in their health exercise and may be by playing with them give them a good health. You can go for walks, play tag, ride bikes, turn on some music and dance. Making exercises a regular part of every day routine in family will benefit the whole family.

Your obese kids won’t be having an easy life in school with teasing and all. So it is better to help them at initial stage and if they have already obese then helping them to reduce weight in a healthy manner is very much essential and important part of parents obligations towards their children.