Childhood Obesity

WATCHING TELEVISION IS MAKING OUR CHILDREN FAT

According to a report it is proven reality that the majority of fat children & adults grow up to become fat adults, at the range of killer diseases along with their expanded waistlines and obesity. The childhood obesity has been found in the Europe and all over the world which is a big problem. It is a common scene repeated in air-conditioned homes across the World. While the temperature outside reaches 35 plus degrees mothers have little option but to keep their toddlers amused in front of the digital baby-sitter that is called television. There are many communities and regions around the world, watching TV is the main activity in the world while it appears harmless enough, for young and adults, shows that even at a very young age, exposing children to too much television can make them fate in their future life. Nutrition and physical activity which investigated the effects of sedentary lifestyles on toddlers. It is also found that the waistlines of ten years old who had watched 18 hours a week at the age of four were 7.5mm bigger than those of children who had watched the average amount of 15 hours.

The distance children could jump was also reduced by a third of a centimeter for each extra hour of TV they had watched per week at the age of two. It is also concluded that the impact of watching too much television on young children was much more profound than simply encouraging them to be inactive. It also affected their attitudes to food and their attitudes to exercise in later life. Too much television is not good. It not only displaces other forms of educational and active leisurely pursuits but also places children at risk of learning inaccurate information about proper eating. The pursuit of sports by children depends in part on their perceived athletic competence. Behavioral dispositions can become entrenched during childhood as it is a critical period for the development of habits and preferred activities.

The lifestyles we unwittingly instill in our children by feeding them television and junk food at an early age , leads them waddling to an early grave in their later life.

The future implication of an obese generation are massive. Children who become overweight and obese have a limited ability to understand the long term consequences of their behaviours and have less opportunity to influence what they eat. On the whole their parents and guardians make food and lifestyle choices for them, like sponges, they later life where they become prone to develop the range of health problems which include glucose intolerance, hypertension, coronary heart disease, certain cancers, respiratory disease and diabetes etc.

The question is produced that why are children becoming larger? There is no single factor to blame. Childhood obesity begins mainly with the parents and is also fed by a complex set of cultural and environmental factors which include lace of opportunities for physical exercises, changing diet and weather restrictions. Another thing is that ,  men and women (or indeed boys and girls) who regularly wears jeans or trousers are able to perceive their own weight gain as their clothing becomes tight and uncomfortable. But an expanding waistline easily goes unnoticed in a  loose fitting voluminous robe, such as a dish-dash. This serves to compound the negative effects of the widespread use of television and computers.

The environmental causes are also deeper psychological and behavioural reasons why children get fat. It is about education. Primarily adults will pass o n ingrained behaviours to their children. But if we go deeper than that my studies have shown that increasingly in Westernized society we have become emotionally disassociated from the food we eat. This is for a number of reasons one of the biggest being convenience culture. It does not even have to mean fast food and unhealthy food. Even healthy  options are prepackaged now. Our understanding of food is that it is convenient and prepackaged which on a psychological level means we don’t think about what we eat. We don’t experience it. We don’t take pride I n it or in many cases understand where it comes from. We have no connection to it. Convenience  also breeds agreed. If you produce your own food, it takes time and there is a limite to the amount you can grow or prepare. But with convenience foods, everything is geared towards instant gratification and marketed towards buying extra.

Awareness is widely regarded as the first step to reducing obesity rates and there are several proactive schemes in the world.

However in order to be effective will first have to challenge attitudes. In a nation where being overweight is widely perceived as cute. A sign of health and wealth and where chubby children are prized a paradigm shift is needed to realize that fat is a handicap. In addition to the practicalities of exercising in the climate there are also hurdles in perception to overcome. At last according to the research, increasing intervention and promising signs that adults and teachers are aware of the problems being created for this young generation the fat time bomb may yet be diffused.