More and more children are overweight complicates life. Genetics, food, sedentary lifestyle – which serves as a trigger? Tips for parents so that the problem of children’s weight does not become a life problem.
Excess weight is one of the “achievements” of developed countries. So, in France over the past 20 years, the number of children with obesity has grown three times and is 16% in the age group of 5 to 12 years. In the USA, there are even more – 20%*. Russia is “behind America for almost two decades: according to the endocrinological scientific center of the RAMS, we have 8.5% of“ urban ”children, in the United States, such figures were observed in the early 80s.
Abundance of confectionery temptations and endless advertising of high -calorie snacks, chips and chocolate bars, watches spent near the computer and TV apply their mark on us: children from infancy grow in an environment that contributes to weight gain. How to recognize alarming signals and “get around” an unhealthy trend?
Sticky or fat man?
Scientists associate the “epidemic” of children’s obesity with the wrong – too high -calorie – nutrition and long immobility in front of the computer and TV (that is, with the same reasons as in adults). WHO experts do not get tired of reminding that not fats and cholesterol, but an excessive amount of sugar in finished products that are imposed by advertising is the main reason for obesity.
“Excess only 50 kcal per day (and this is only a third of a small jar of cola, a handful of chips or 25 g of ice cream) leads to an increase in body weight by 2.25 kg per year,” says Valentina Peterkov, director of the Institute of Children’s Endocrinology of the Endocrinology Center for the Endocrinology Center. “Obesity is a disease, such a diagnosis is presented in the international classification of diseases,” explains Endocrinologist Ekaterina Aleksandrov. – However, there is also an intermediate state between normal weight and obesity – excess body weight. This state of the disease in the full sense of the word cannot be called, but this is no longer the norm “.
Serious endocrine causes of obesity in children are quite rare, the frequency of this kind of case remains constant over the past decades. According to Ekaterina Alexandrova, previously obesity developed mainly after 30–40 years, and today there are already a lot of full children at 8-12 years old. This means that those diseases that were previously formed by 50-60 years, in today’s children will be formed at 25-30 years, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus. Not to mention hypertension, change in the lipid spectrum of blood.
“Most likely, this generation will cover a wave of early strokes and heart attacks – at 35–45 years old,” says Ekaterina Alexandrova. – In addition, obesity naturally leads to atherosclerosis of the brain, in which memory decreases and other disorders develop, which used to be considered senile ailments ”. It sounds quite pessimistic, however, compared to the West, our country has several years of handicap: recognizing the predisposition to fatness, we can help our children avoid it.
Genes weight
If there is a fat man among the parents, grandparents, then the child can inherit the predisposition to completeness. If obesity is observed in both parents, the risk is higher. Statistics shows that every second full child has one of the parents in a violation of fat metabolism, and in a third – both parents suffer from excess body weight, and children most often “copy” the mother.
“Genetically we are all different,” says Ekaterina Alexandrova. – One person can “lay off” 100 g of fat to eaten 1000 kcal, and the other – nothing. Even eating the same, children of the same age and height, but with different genetics they will gain weight differently “.
According to pediatrician Mikhail Budarin, the first year of life is extremely important-after all, it is at this time that the number of fat cells is laid, which a person will have a permanent all his life. And excess weight is only the result of increasing their size.
At 5-6 years old and during puberty, children are also at risk of growing up, especially if there is a predisposition to this. “Excessive weight contributes to the formation of an inferiority complex in the child. As a rule, such adolescents, if they arrange in their subsequent personal life, then find partners of their “weight category” and the corresponding lifestyle. The combination of genes of full people leads to the emergence of offspring, even more prone to obesity, ”adds Ekaterina Alexandrova.
What can be opposed to the “weight of the genes”? First of all, care for the food habits of the family. For example, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the child is constantly chewing something between breakfast, lunch and dinner, understand the reasons for this and establish a regime that, without limiting and not forcing the child, will protect him from a possible set of excessive weight.
With mother’s milk
“Often, it is the mother who initially prompted the child to“ seize ”the problems,” says psychoanalyst Alexander Pavlov. Why and how it happens?
“Food is the first pleasure that is available to the baby. If the child cries, the mother tries to give him a chest or bottle of milk to reassure him. Later, instead of milk, there may be cookies, sweets. It turns out, instead of understanding what really worries the baby, and survive his fears with him, such a mother encourages him to “seize” the problems.
If for some reason, along with milk, he did not receive enough love from his mother, he has an obsessive desire to compensate for the deficit. He – an adult – has to resort to the surrogates of mother’s milk: at best, to cake (whipped milk) and ice cream (frozen milk), in the worst – to alcohol, drugs.
In the future, such a person is afraid to encounter a surrogate of relations again, because relations with his mother were essentially surrogate: he received milk (calories), but did not receive heat. As a result of this, people prone to overeating are forced to count calories, hoping thus controling a huge unsatisfied need for love. “.
6 useful habits
1. Encourage him to eat vegetables. personal example. If he once or two refused carrots, this does not necessarily mean that he will not like it. From 3 to 9 years old, 60% of children experience the period of “neophobia”: they refuse to try some new food. Offer vegetables again and again, varying methods of preparing them.
2. Refuse to use food for remuneration and blackmail. “If you obey, you will receive a candy, if you behave poorly, you will be left without sweets” – such a statement of the question not only enhances the craving for sweets, but can also lead to neurosis.
3. Avoid the temptation. It is better not to store cookies, soda, sweets at home – they can be bought “on holidays”, small portions.
4. Replace calorie snacks (chips, peanuts, crackers) on raw vegetables, if the child has the need to eat between lunch and dinner.
5. Serving portions corresponding to age. A six -year -old baby does not eat as much as a teenager or an adult.
6. Do not use the TV instead of nanny. At the TV and at the computer, the child more often feels like chewing something-try to get rid of this habit.
Recognize liability
As a rule, almost all full children eat significantly more than their slender peers, although they affirm the opposite. Often, children (like adults) are continuously chewing something, not realizing this, if they feel anxiety, self-doubt, lack of attention from loved ones. Some, demonstrating their appetite, calm their alarming mothers;Others identify themselves with their father and eat “like dad”, absorbing adult portions.
Food can also serve as a means to fill in loneliness, drive away boredom or disguise depression. Sometimes mothers and grandmothers feed their children to extend (in their eyes, of course) infancy – the “sweetest” age of the child. It is with him that round cheeks, thick legs, chubby hands and tummy are associated with it. The child is growing, and many mothers unconsciously extract “benefits” from his dimming: he is less mobile and because of this we control. It is worth letting him to chew on something-and you can calmly go about your business. The excess weight of the child is the problem of the family as a whole. And you will most likely have to go to a psychologist.
Lifestyle
So, for starters, you will have to find out what is primary: metabolic disorders or psychological problems. The endocrinologist first of all eliminates the presence of diseases that are accompanied by
overweight, and then develops a diet and recommends what to change in lifestyle. The diet should be approached especially carefully. The fact is that children are harder than adults, endure restrictions on food. “Seryozha can be chips and ice cream, but I don’t?”For a child, this will seem to be discrimination or punishment.
Often children are thrown into those products that they forbid them to eat at home as soon as they go beyond the threshold. Therefore, a hard ban on some products brings not so much benefit as harm. But it is worth reconsider the child’s diet and change it in favor of non -core products. However, a kind of discipline will have to adhere to everyone – from a grandmother who loves to treat her grandson with pies, to a dad who is not indifferent to beer with crackers and chips.
A diet must supplement physical activity. Passive sitting at the TV or computer needs to be minimized, and the point is not only that at the same time the energy consumption falls to zero: every 15 minutes, an advertisement for nuts, bars, carbonated water, and other eating an advertisement for the TV ..