Obese kids? Blame poor lifestyle – Times of India

Ludhiana: When 5-year-old Navneet Kaur, who weights 55kg, was diagnosed with obesity, doctor suggested a strict weight loss plan for her.

Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition that affects children and adolescents. It occurs when a child is well above the normal weight for his or her age and height.

The number has risen rapidly and it will not be wrong to proclaim it as an epidemic.

India is third most obese country in the world and is showing increasing incidence of obesity among children and adolescents and Punjab is not an exception. From infants to teenagers, poor lifestyle is taking its toll.

Recently, a 14 year old child, weighting 140 kg, had to undergo a weight loss surgery.

Poor lifestyle, lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating habits are some of the major reasons behind this alarming situation.

Obesity doesn’t comes alone, but is accompanied by many problems like early diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis.

Talking to Dr Ashish Ahuja from Dayanand Medical College & Hospital (DMCH), said, “Usually weight loss surgeries are done after a persons attains 18 years of age. However, recently we had to perform this surgery on 14-year-old child. This is an alarming situation. Poor lifestyle along with hereditary factors are major reasons behind obesity in kids. When we were young, we use to go out in parks and also cycled a lot. However, kids these days prefer watching TV and playing online games. Internet has also added fuel to fire.”

He added, “A child should participate in outdoor activities for at least 1-2 hours a day and also eat healthy. Parents have a started accepting obesity as a part of lifestyle, which is not right. Everyday there at least there are 2-3 such cases that come to us and it counts to almost 60 obese kids in a month! Every year the number is increasing. Childhood obesity is becoming a huge problem these days and it needs to be curtailed. Stress these days is also one of the reasons for kids to gain weight.”

A parent Harnaam Kaur said, “I used to send my kids to park or for cycling, but I can’t do that to my grandchildren as there so much traffic and we hear so many crimes against children. It scares us. It is better to let the kids stay at home than to go outside. However, we do worry about their health. It’s not easy to take care of them 24×7.”

Another mother Himanshi Chabra from Atam Nagar said, “My son is 2 years old but I make sure he plays some sports. Though he plays and runs throughout the day, I make sure he does some sports with me for an hour. These days I am taking him skating and for next month I will plan some another physical activity.”

Another parent Manpreet Kaur said, “Me and my husband are both healthy and we want our child to be healthy as well. Though our kids are a little above normal weight, but we are taking it seriously from now only. They are three and 5 years old and sent them to play badminton and other sports activities. We also make sure they don’t eat junk food.”

from myhealtyze http://www.myhealtyze.tk/obese-kids-blame-poor-lifestyle-times-of-india/