Childhood obesity | What you need to know about childhood obesity

Causes of obesity

When you find that your child’s weight is increasing, do you start to worry about your child’s health? If the weight rises in this way, it will not only affect the appearance of the child but also have a great impact on their normal development. So, what are the causes of obesity in children? Is it just because of excess nutrition?

The causes of obesity are:

1. Excessive heat and nutrient intake

Children's heat and overnutrition will be affected by family factors, social factors, and children's poor eating habits. Families buy a lot of food, which creates conditions for children to eat easily and casually. The food provided by the family has an unreasonable structure, which is characterized by high calorie, high fat, high protein, and low dietary fiber. Some families use unreasonable cooking methods. They prefer to use deep-frying, less steaming, and too much oil and water. On the social front, TV food advertisements are being promoted day by day, leaving an indelible impression in the minds of children. The foreign fast food restaurant has a comfortable environment and becomes a place for students to meet, birthday treats, do homework, and review homework. The lunches provided by some nutritious lunch companies or schools to students do not meet the relevant requirements for nutritious meals for students promulgated by the Ministry of Health. The low-quality lunch disrupts the distribution plan of calories for three meals a day according to nutritional requirements.

2. Insufficient exercise

The exercise mentioned here not only refers to physical exercise but also refers to children's "work" and "inactivity". Many parents take care of everything for their children, do not let them sweep the floor, wipe the table, wash the dishes, make the bed, etc., and do not encourage their children to do the housework within their capacity. If the child cannot eat and consumes less energy, there will be nutrition and energy surplus.

3. Psychological and behavioral factors

Energy, overnutrition, and insufficient exercise are two factors that everyone knows more clearly, but psychological factors are often ignored. Obese children have abnormal psychological behaviors, and they often eat without being hungry. For example, some children want to eat food when they see it, some children like to eat while watching TV, some children adjust their emotions by eating when they are in a bad mood, and some have to eat before going to bed to fall asleep. These eating behaviors are not based on the body's nutritional needs, but a habit, which is an excessive nutritional intake caused by abnormal psychological factors. They sometimes have low self-esteem, depression, sensitivity, and often desire to possess. This mental state makes them overeating and lack exercise, resulting in obesity.

4. Heredity

If both parents are obese, the child’s probability of obesity is about 70%-80%. If one parent is obese, the child’s probability of obesity is about 40%. If both parents are thin, the child’s probability of obesity is about 14%. Child obesity has a lot to do with the inheritance of parents. Modern molecular biology studies have also confirmed that obese children do have some genetic mutations. Some children are fat but their parents are not fat. The main cause of obesity is environmental factors, such as overeating, eating more snacks and sweets, and lack of exercise.

Obesity standards

Is your child obese? This is not simply weighing, measuring height can confirm. Although the body mass index (BMI=weight/height square, kg/m2) has always been adopted internationally as one of the main measures of obesity, in fact, for children in adolescent development, it is only This indicator is far from enough. As a parent, how can I know if a child is obese?

When considering whether a child is obese, parents must consider at least three factors, namely the body mass index BMI, the ratio of waist circumference to height, and the proportion of body fat.

The first is to measure height and weight every year and calculate BMI. Usually, 2-6 years old children are less than 18; 6-9 years old is less than 19; 10-12 years old is less than 21 (if it is a girl, it can be relaxed to 22); 13-15 years old is less than 23; 16-18 years old is less than 24.

Secondly, we must regularly measure waist circumference to determine whether it is abdominal obesity. For children over 6 years old, the ideal waist circumference/weight value is less than 0.46.

Finally, if it is possible to measure the proportion of fat in total body weight, you should know that boys and girls under 12 should be less than 20%; girls over 12 should be less than 25%.

Based on the above information, I believe that parents also know whether their children are obese! Facing the above obesity standards, parents quickly measure it for their children!