Childhood Obesity Facts Are Not Painting A Flattering Picture Of The Present Or Of The Future
March 8, 2008
Child obesity is defined as a child who has a body mass index that is too high. In boys, the body mass index should be less than twenty-five, and in girls, it should be less than thirty-two. Technically the best way to measure child obesity is through skin fold measurements. A skin fold measurement involves a caliper that pinches the skin on the upper arm to measure how much is fatty tissue. To ensure accurate readings, someone who has been trained on how to use the instrument should do this. These teenagers are at considerable risk of becoming obese adults. As children unhealthy eating habits and poor food choices were main reasons contributing to children obesity. Also lack of Exercise has been a leading cause of child obesity. These children in turn grow into in obese adults. Since a few years there is a considerable. The rate at which childhood obesity has increased from last twenty years has led the researchers to term it as “‘international epidemic of childhood obesity’.
An Alarming Proportion Of Children Are Obese
If the childhood obesity facts are to be believed then in a country like Australia the number of obese children has more than doubled, and at the same time, there has been a tripling of obesity in all age groups of children of either sex. This indeed is a frightening fact. As such when more and more childhood obesity facts come to light, an alarming picture is being drawn in which, it is believed, that in 1995, the proportion of obese children was twenty-one percent in the case of boys and twenty-three percent in the case girls. Even a country like US is not behind. The Childhood obesity facts of America state there has been more than a doubling of obesity in preschool children as well as in adolescents aged between twelve and nineteen years of age. In the age group of between six and eleven years, this figure has tripled and it is believed that, at present, there are as many as nine million children aged six or above that are obese.
With such kind of childhood obesity facts coming into picture one can definitely draw an inference that Obesity continues to affect children throughout the world irrespective of whether it is a developing country, developed or under-developed country. Other childhood obesity facts show that along with the increase in obesity prevalence, the adolescent groups are becoming heavier while the lean groups of children are staying lean. Apart from this other childhood obesity facts show that almost sixty percent of obese children aged between five and ten years have a minimum of one cardiovascular disease risk factor, and twenty-five percent had two or more risk cardiovascular disease risk factors. Also, childhood obesity facts point us in the direction that, for children born in the US in 2000, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with type II diabetes is around thirty percent for boys and forty percent for girls, and this figure rises in the case of ethnic minority groups
Summary
The effects of obesity include an increase in diseases such as childhood diabetes. The children who are overweight when young tend to grow up to be overweight adults, which means that they are more likely to suffer from heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Overweight children tend to suffer psychologically and physically as well. Their self-esteem also suffers from the negative treatment they receive because they are obese. Thus parents should be extremely cautious with childhood obesity and take it seriously.
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