Obesity increases especially when kids are growing up. At a minimum, one in every six children is obese and over the last 20 years, this statistic has risen by above 60% and the population of overweight children has almost doubled (Jay, 2011). Obesity in children is mainly caused by unhealthy eating habits, i.e., excessive calories and inadequate physical activity. Because these eating patterns begin in early childhood, attempts to reduce overweight among children must start early. The essential and effective approach for preventing obesity or overweight in children is through practicing a healthy eating diet (Macé & Shahkhalili, 2010).
Eating behaviors, as well as physical activity among children, are guides that are established in childhood, but some studies consider that physical activities may not be effective enough to reduce obesity. Selections of children’s foods are influenced by what parents provide them and healthy foods give nutrition for developing bodies while modeling safe eating habits and ways.
A Diet with minimal or standard amounts of fats and provision of high simple carbohydrates has been reported to be simply as valuable in generating a small weight loss as an equivalent diet having high input of complex carbohydrates. Nevertheless, some analyzes propose that sugar and drinks apply a weaker impact on satiety and can contribute a lot in promoting the rate of obesity among children. Some other issues are whole grain and dietary fiber elements of the diet, this is vegetables and fruits. Furthermore, raising the amount of dietary protein from 12 to 20% of sum energy can provide an extra approach to reducing fat and adequate carbohydrate diets, and can improve satiety (Debruyne, Pinna, & Noss, 2011, p.279).
On contrary, Professionals consider that children are planned to be sedentary or sporty, and forcing them into physical activities can have minimal impact on whether the child is obese or not (Mela, 2005, p.35). The research reported that although lower than half of boys and one in seven girls do the suggested length of exercise daily this is not reflected in their physical appearance.
Availability of food, family practices, and social norms at schools and child care services help in controlling the eating behaviors of children. They may influence kids from taking a healthy diet or make sure those children with excessive contact with unwholesome foods, which possess more calories, know its hazards. Furthermore, studies report that parents practicing healthy eating habits would make their children follow the same. Therefore, practicing better eating behaviors in children and making sure that they retain these practices for a long time would help in reducing the possibility of obesity.
Providing a healthy diet is the keystone of the most favorable development and growth for babies and teens. A healthy diet permits children to carry on with their education successfully. Eating a wide range of meals during early age is probably to set up food preferences which will remain into old age. The food favorites of several people at old age are likely to resemble the foods which they mostly consumed during an early age. For instance, kids who consume a huge amount of energy-dense foods are probably to become obese, particularly if they are inactive.
The study involving around 400 six years old kids in California reported that the number of exercises children perform is not connected with their Body Mass Index (Wing, 2009). Children who perform enough exercises were in a good health when they evaluated the fat contents in their blood and blood pressure; however, the quantity of exercise they perform did not affect the fat level. At an early age, physical activity is linked with continuous development in metabolic health but not with an adjustment in obesity or BMI. From the above discussion, we can conclude that eating a good diet is more effective than forcing children to do exercises. Despite this opposition, children should be encouraged to do moiré exercises to enhance their better health but it may not be effective as consuming healthy diets.
References
Debruyne, L., Pinna, K., & Noss, E. (2011). Nutrition & Diet Therapy. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning.
Jay, P. (2011). Obesity in Children. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(2): 140–59.
Macé, K., & Shahkhalili, C. (2010). Dietary fat and fat types as early determinants of childhood obesity: a reappraisal. Int J Obes (Lond), 34(7): 12-30.
Mela, D. (2005). Food, diet, and obesity. New York: CRC Press.
Wing, K. (2009). Healthy Diet in Children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 32(3): 2-34.
