How to help parents educate their children about healthy weight, healthy foods and eating habits, and a healthy lifestyle is not something many adults have experience in doing. Believe me, as a single working parent of two children for the past 14 years it has been difficult to manage the nutritional content of what my children eat. Advertising targeted at children and convenience to parents send messages of “good for you” and “healthier than” can often be taken as truthful, especially in the busy lives that we lead.
I have always been conscientious about mine and my family’s health, and I believe that all parents are concerned about their children’s nutrition and the foods that they eat. We can all do better by our children with a few simple changes to increasing physical activity and improving the family’s overall eating habits, including the choice of food products that are that are quick, tasty, low cost and good for our kids.
No parent wants their child to have poor nutrition, poor health or to be overweight. However, the tens of thousands of research studies on the physical health effects and the social effects on children who are overweight and obese indicate the predicament that we, as parents, are putting our children in everyday with the foods we buy and feed our children. Not only are we unintentionally and unknowingly hurting their health, we are hurting their emotional and psychological well being.
As reported in a recent study conducted by Dr. Sara Gable of the University of Missouri in Columbia, children who are overweight perceive themselves as having worse interpersonal skills, lower social standing, and worse peer relationships than children who are not overweight. Overweight children also exhibit more internalizing behaviors, such as social withdrawal or depression. And for both boys and girls who are persistently overweight from kindergarten through third grade, these feelings of depression, anxiety and loneliness get worse over time.
The negative impact of being overweight most acutely affects young girls, who are viewed less favorably than other girls because of their weight. Overweight girls have less positive social relations, display less self-control and act more out than girls who are not overweight, also reported in the study.
Appearance-based social pressure can be particularly brutal to children. In fact there have been an increasing number of reported cases of peer abuse against overweight children, from taunting to physical attacks. The self-esteem of children is fragile in any “normal” situation and can be destroyed when negative peer pressure and abuse is suffered.
Obesity is a growing epidemic, as these stats confirm. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 13.9% of children aged 2 to 5 are overweight, 18.8% of those aged 6 to 11 are overweight, and more than 17% of those age 12 to 19 are overweight. Nearly 26 percent of U.S. adults are considered obese. In three states, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, the rate has hit 30 percent.
Unhealthy lifestyles including high-calorie diets, poor exercise and hours spent in front of the television and computer screen have contributed to the surge in the number of children who are overweight and obese in the United States. A quick look at the food items on store shelves and in our own pantries will shed some light on the 37% increase in obesity rates and an 89% increase in spending on medical care for obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis, between 1998 and 2006. Those statistics are increasing at alarming rates.
Our markets are filled with products which are not only devoid of nutritional content, but high in calories, chemical additives and preservatives. Americans are looking for products that are quick, tasty and low cost. The result of these demands have provided Americans with over-processed, high calorie, low quality foods to satisfy our grab-n-go, dollar menu, value meal mentality! No matter what you do, food companies will continue to fill your kids’ world with junk food.
While the ultimate solution is fresh natural foods, the challenge for parents is bridging the gap between fresh natural foods and the fast food and snack products. We can replace the fast food and snacks our kids eat with great tasting scientifically designed nutritional food products that provide the same satisfaction as “junk” food while helping, not hurting, our kids.
Learn how you can help make it easier for your kids to be healthier, happier, and perform better as you begin to change your family’s nutrition habits for the better, with kid’s nutrition by design.
Contact me at: d.adame@bellainvestmentholdingsllc.com or by phone at 832-683-9463
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