This text deals with the issue of obesity in the children, its causes and possible treatments. Obesity is a disorder in eating that is manifested through overweight that is determined by the standard growing charts. The facts that people who live in the USA belong to the most overweight population in the world is, unfortunately, true. There are various things that can cause obesity, but the food and diet are the most frequent causes.
Causes of Obesity
In children and infants, obesity develops when a child takes in more calories than its body spends. Parents are usually overprotective and always worrying if their child has eaten enough, so they overfeed their children, thus leading them to obesity. Obesity also develops due to the beverages that are high in calories and that we, as a nation, drink in large quantities. These beverages should be replaced with regular water and the difference will be enormous. Some other, rarer, obesity causes include hormonal disorders, food consuming as a stress relief, lack of exercise, side effect of some medicines.
Symptoms of obesity
Well, symptoms of obesity can’t go unnoticed. The most obvious symptom that indicates obesity is being overweight according to the standard growth charts. Obesity can cause some other conditions that can be life threatening and among those conditions are also heart diseases, hypertension and some cancer types. A doctor can diagnose obesity by comparing your height and weigh with the growth chart. Since it is normal for a baby and a toddler to be chubby, an overweight baby would look really fat not just lovely chubby. It is different with determining an adolescent's height and weight, and it is done by converting it into body mass index. This mass index is received when the weight in kilograms is divided by height in meters squared. If the body mass index in adolescent is over 30, then he/she is considered to be obese and a treatment is recommended.
Treatment
If the rate of weight gain is decreasing as the months pass by, then the child is losing weigh and the treatment has been successful. But, this is not recommended without consulting a doctor. A parent can be fully satisfied if healthy eating habits have been implemented in a child. American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that newborns should be breastfed whenever they show a sign that they are hungry and according to them, newborns should be nursed 8-12 times every day. When they reach six months, they should be fed with solid food. You should know how they react when they are full since that is the time when you should stop with the feeding. You should avoid sweets in your child as long as you can, or at least until they are one year old. In short, you should slowly teach your child as it grows to eat more small meals that have a variety of all sorts of vegetables, fruit and meat. Teach your child to have a breakfast as it is the most important meal of the day. Sweets should also be apart of their diet, but in moderate way. Enroll them in teaching and playing some sport activities.
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