Posted by katte

The roots and causes of childhood obesity can be loosely grouped into both controllable and non-controllable factors. The controllable factors include those that when changes are applied, they may result in children losing weight or simply remaining physically fit. The options with the non-controllable factors are very limiting.

Among the controllable factors that impact childhood obesity are lack of physical activity, a sedentary lifestyle (for example, more TV viewing than activity, like sports), constant exposure to advertisements of high calorie junk food, and questionable eating habits.

All food we eat supplies the human body with fuel in the form of calories. When we do not use these calories as fuel for energy, they are stored in the body as fat. The role of exercise and physical activity in general is to use these excess energy sources in our bodies and, in the process, reduce our physical size. This cycle is no different in children.

Trends in recreational interests for children have changed fairly dramatically over the last few decades. Active participation in sporting activities is often replaced with video games, TV and computers. Consequently, the hand becomes the most exercised part of the body! Since the body in low-exertion movements uses only minimal energy, a significant percentage of body calories are converted to fat - the result over time is childhood obesity.

Today we live in an era of convenience. Instead of walking to school or to town as children did in prior generations, they can ride a school bus, use their own vehicles (or have parents do the driving), and can easily use public transportation when needed. So children’s muscles, rather than being used to walk and run, remain relatively inactive. Most of their time is spent sitting with little movement. Thousands of calories lay dormant, and waistlines expand to obesity with a snowball like effect.

It does not help children that heavily advertised junk food, such as chips and soda, are so popular among the snacks available to them. These types of foods combined with the lack of physical activity lead far too many children to put on weight and become obese.

Ever notice how much children eat even when they are neither hungry nor active? And when they do, typically the food is not nutritious. These two factors alone simultaneously contribute significantly to the child obesity problem. Such ingrained habits markedly increase their risk of long-term weight problems and struggles, well into adulthood.

Concerning non-controllable childhood obesity factors, the primary is genetics. Scientists have observed for years that obese children frequently have obese parents. Thus when a tendency toward obesity is thought to be inherited, concerned parents must provide more stringent measures to prevent - or at least minimize - obesity in their children. In such scenarios, regular exercise, a nutritious lifestyle diet, and the other controllable obesity factors become all the more critical in their childhood rearing considerations. This can be extremely difficult for obese parents who are likely to be unwittingly teaching their children poor eating habits, which they themselves have learnt over the years.  

Ultimately, parents must simply accept influences that cannot be changed (e.g. genetics, flood of junk food commercials) while being diligent to engage in other available means of helping their children’s general health, particularly in trying to reduce obesity by consuming less calories than are used.

 by: Cliff Baker

The authors site The Fat Burner offers unbiased information on how to lose weight and keep it off permanently by burning body fat and without wrecking your metabolism, without drugs and without expensive supplements.