Childhood obesity is becoming a worldwide epidemic. Despite the distressing reality that many South Africans still go to bed hungry, it’s estimated that about 20% of South African children are overweight.
Is your child overweight or obese?
Your local clinic will have the average weights for different ages e.g. a six-month-old baby should weigh about 6kg and be 60cm in length, while a two-year-old of approximately 86cm should weigh about 12kg. But, as children grow at different rates, these are just averages, so check with your doctor or clinic sister if you are concerned. After age five, a child’s weight can be assessed by the body mass index (BMI), which determines weight in proportion to their height. If a child is obese, their BMI would be higher than 95% when compared to children of the same age and gender.
What makes a child obese?
“Firstly, bad eating habits,” says nutritional expert and regular contributor on SABC3’s Expresso, Andrea du Plessis, of Vital Health Foods, Cape Town. “Overeating, or being overfed is the main contributing factor to childhood obesity. While young children’s energy intake is usually determined by what their parents feed them, the eating habits of children of school-going age are affected by factors which parents have very little control over, such as tuck-shops at schools that sell high-density energy foods like chocolates, sweets, crisps and sweetened cold drinks.”
The aftermath of obesity for the child as an adult?
Andrea identifies three problem areas:
- Risk for eating disorders. eating disorders later in life like anorexia (eating extremely little), bulimia (binge-eating and then making oneself vomit in order to avoid putting on weight) or orthorexia (unhealthy obsession with eating ‘healthy’ food). This is due to the extreme focus on food, the control of eating habits and obsession about weight.
- Poor self-esteem and lack of confidence. From a very young age children are highly sensitive to weight issues and teasing at school is very common – leaving deep scars of rejection and ridicule.
- Increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Carrying excess body fat is known to increase the risk for these diseases.
What parents can do to help
It’s important to NOT put your child on a special diet. Being overweight needs to be handled sensitively. Andrea suggests a focus on wholesome, healthy family meals that include foods that are enjoyable for the whole family.”Pick up any magazine or recipe book and a multitude of healthy recipes are available. Apart from healthy eating at home, there should also be a focus on guiding children to healthy eating when they go to restaurants, fast-food outlets or when eating on the run.”
Get moving
It might not be popular at first, but try a ‘TV blackout’ for a short period every day – put on some music instead and everyone (mom, dad and Gogo too!) has to get up and dance! Unfortunately many schools don’t offer sport, but check what sport training is available in your community and get together with other parents to organise activities.
Read food labels
Beware of hidden sugar in snacks that are supposed to be healthy:
- Juice – even 100% juice is high in fruit sugar, but watch out for ‘fruit nectar’ or juices with added sugar.
- Low-fat flavoured yoghurts – get kids used to fresh fruit and plain yoghurt from an early age.
- Flavoured drinking yoghurts – very high sugar content, rather make your own plain yoghurt and fresh fruit smoothies.
