Obesity not only makes children feel self-conscious and shy, but also adversely affects their health and inhibits the natural growth of height.
Warning about obesity in children
Obesity is a condition in which weight exceeds the standard weight for height. At this time, too much fat accumulates, damaging the activity of cells, adversely affecting health.
When the economy is stable, parents have better conditions to take care of their children’s nutrition. However, lack of knowledge about nutritional balance and unscientific food choices have led parents to make mistakes when taking care of their children, causing them to face obesity and countless health consequences. , another spirit.
Causes of obesity
Children are obese due to the following reasons:
– Heredity: When one parent is obese, both parents are obese, the child will be at risk of being obese or overweight even though the diet, exercise routine is still normal.
– Unscientific diet: The main cause of obesity is an unscientific diet. Many Vietnamese children now love fast foods: Hamburger, french fries, pizza, fried sausage, milk tea, carbonated soft drinks… are all foods containing high fat and sugar content, which can easily cause an increase in weight gain. weigh. Many parents supplement their children with large amounts of milk every day. The high protein and fat content in milk is also responsible for weight gain. Although milk is good for health, it must be used rationally, avoiding abuse, and will adversely affect weight and health.
– Inactivity: Vietnam is in the group of the most inactive countries with only about 15.3% of people exercising more than thirty minutes a day according to the statistics of The Lancet (UK) medical journal. Maintaining a diet rich in protein, sugar, and fat but not exercising or doing sports makes energy intake more than energy expended. Excess energy will be stored as fat, causing overweight and obesity. In addition, inactivity also makes the body sluggish, poor physical strength, slow reflexes … not good for health as well as the process of height growth.
– Unhealthy activities: Regular lack of sleep promotes the production of serum ghrelin – a hormone that stimulates appetite, making us hungry faster, eat more appetite and eat more. Therefore, encouraging children to sleep early and get enough sleep is an important factor that needs to be done if parents want their children to have good health and not be obese. In addition, many children during puberty want to prove themselves, are lured by bad friends, so they should use alcohol, coffee, etc. This is also the cause of significant weight gain because of the calories in alcohol. , beer, coffee … are relatively large, stimulating the digestive system, making us eat more, feeling full slowly, combined with high-fat drinks, the easier it is to cause weight gain.
Obese children often find it difficult to grow to their maximum height
Obesity is not only an external aesthetic factor but also adversely affects health and the process of natural height growth. Children with overweight and obesity are taller than their peers, but at puberty, their height growth is slower, they stop growing earlier, leading to short stature in adulthood. In addition, some actual evidence demonstrating the link between obesity and short stature are as follows:
– Obese children tend to be inactive: With a large body mass, obese children often get tired quickly when they have to exercise, the musculoskeletal system is also under greater pressure when exercising, increasing the risk of injury muscle. Therefore, people with obesity often tend to be inactive, passive, combined with a high diet, large energy intake, and low consumption, making obesity more serious. On the other hand, movement can dominate up to 20% of the height development process. If you are lazy, your child has missed 1/5 of his or her chance to grow up.
– Trends in eating and using foods rich in fat and protein: Fat and protein are both basic and essential groups of substances for the body. However, if you only eat in favor of foods containing these 2 groups of substances, but ignore vitamins and minerals, height cannot be maximized. In the structure of bones, calcium accounts for the largest proportion. If you only eat foods containing fat and protein, without adding enough vitamins and minerals, the new bone formation process will be stalled, and your height will stagnate. Obese people often have the habit of eating foods rich in protein and fat, prefer to eat fried foods, high in fat, low in green vegetables… it is an unbalanced diet that causes weight gain, and at the same time hinders growth. height growth.
– Obesity leads to early puberty: Children hit puberty when the body has enough needed hormone leptin. This hormone, which regulates appetite and reproductive function, is secreted from fat cells. Therefore, if the body accumulates a lot of fat, the increased number of fat cells will stimulate the production of the hormone leptin, thereby leading to early puberty. This explains why obese children often experience early puberty. Meanwhile, early puberty is considered as one of the causes of height restriction. Children with precocious puberty have less time to grow in height than children with normal age puberty, thereby making them shorter than their peers in adulthood.
Solutions to grow taller for obese children
Obese children, besides paying attention to controlling weight at an appropriate threshold, also need to apply solutions to promote good growth and height so as not to be short and short in adulthood.
Absolutely do not fast, skip meals: To lose weight, many children during puberty (especially girls) often fast, skip meals continuously. This has a very bad effect on health as well as the natural height development process. Intermittent fasting means that there is no energy, the cells are weakened, the body does not have the ability to study and work. In particular, lack of nutrition, especially nutrients necessary for bones such as: Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Zinc …, height cannot grow. Therefore, the first and most important thing that we need to pay attention to is to eat enough and at the right time, do not skip meals, choose foods rich in vitamins and minerals but low in fat, and limit sugar. It is best to contact and follow the advice of a nutritionist.
Daily physical activity: Daily physical exercise helps promote mineralization and modeling of bones and joints, strong and supple bones, burns energy, reduces excess fat, and is good for the afternoon. Tall and good for weight. You should spend about 45 minutes – 1 hour/day to practice sports such as: Swimming, jogging, jumping rope, volleyball, basketball, yoga…
Sleep early and get enough sleep: Sleep and living environment affect about 25% of height growth. Sleeping early and getting enough sleep helps the pituitary gland to produce more growth hormone, promoting a rapid increase in height. Every day, you need to sleep for 8 hours, nap for 15-20 minutes. The bedroom needs to be spacious, airy and clean for a good and deep sleep.
Stay away from stimulants, carbonated drinks: Stimulants, carbonated drinks both adversely affect height growth and make obesity more serious. Therefore, it is necessary to quickly remove these products from the diet. Instead, you should choose filtered water, smoothies, fresh fruit juices to take care of your skin, physique and good for the growth process.
Weight can be adjusted if you follow a healthy diet, exercise, and scientific activities. However, we only have about the first 20 years of our life to grow taller. Therefore, if a child is obese, parents need to pay attention to the balance between two goals: Controlling weight and increasing height, not because of weight pressure that hinders height growth.