Overweight in children is now a frequent and acute problem. This leads to a sedentary, sedentary lifestyle, the consumption of high-calorie foods such as chips and soda, and simply not the right diet. But overweight children get sick more often than their peers of normal build. There is also a risk that such children, having matured, will acquire a whole bunch of diseases (diabetes, and even infertility).
So what do you do if your child is overweight?
First of all, we go to a specialist, to a doctor.
Everything has its reasons, including fullness, and it is the doctor who will help you identify these reasons. The pediatrician will tell you what is normal weight for your child's age and height. Most likely, you will need to consult an endocrinologist to rule out problems with the hormonal background.
And if doctors exclude the option of fullness as a consequence of the disease, then the problem is in the lifestyle and nutrition of the child.
Review your lifestyle, your eating habits, your diet. Think about what kind of sport you can do with the whole family. For example, in winter - skiing or skating, in summer - cycling and rollerblading, and even simple jogging and walking. It is very good to play badminton or volleyball - excellent physical activity.
Instead of a TV and a computer, on the weekend you will get out with the whole family to nature, to the park. This will be a great example for your child. It is not enough to talk about something, you need to do and set an example.
A physically active lifestyle for an overweight child is an opportunity to both lose weight and increase the endurance of the body.
The next step is proper, rational nutrition.
The most important thing is to instill in your child the habit of proper nutrition, then, having matured, he will eat rationally. Teach your child not to overeat, but to eat in moderation, also to chew food thoroughly.
It is important to observe the correct diet, the diet should be balanced, with a predominance of fruits, cereals and vegetables. It is better to cook for a couple, and season the dishes with olive oil, but in no case mayonnaise. Do not feed your child with sausages, it is better to cook chicken breast or fish. Adopt some simple fish recipes, because it's both quick and healthy. Avoid fatty, salty and starchy foods. Such unhealthy sweets as cakes, sweets, sweet buns, replace with dried fruits and marshmallows. And in general, it is better to remove such products from the field of view of the child as chips, sweets, soda, cookies, so as not to tempt him.
Forget fast food! In civilized countries, fast food restaurants are a place and an opportunity for busy people to have a bite to eat, and not a place to spend time on a family weekend.
Support your child with the whole family!
Make a diet in such a way that the whole family can eat healthy and tasty. Teach your family to eat right.
Give your child peace of mind. The reasons for fullness can also be in his unrest, anxiety, for example, due to a nervous situation in the family. Talk to your child candidly, it may be enough just to eliminate anxiety.
Praise your child consistently for progress in weight loss. But at the same time, do not plant complexes in a child. Never refuse him food with condemnation that he is fat. Do not set an example for someone thin. Be patient. Be an assistant in the fight against extra pounds set an example for your child. And, believe me, soon the kilograms of your child will begin to leave. You will succeed!
Everyone likes rosy-cheeked butuzes who smile and look at their parents with joyful eyes. These chubby arms and legs in folds are delightful, and after three or more years they are alarming. And the older your round peanut gets, the more difficult it will be for him to communicate on an equal footing with his peers. What to do if your child is fat?
Obesity vs Overweight: What's the Difference?
Often such concepts as "obesity" and "overweight" are confused. In most cases, they are considered identical. However, this is not quite true. The fact is that not always when a child is fat, he suffers from obesity. Almost each of us has one that matches our age and height.
If for some reason this norm is violated (in the direction of its increase), then this will indicate the appearance of excess weight (i.e., over the norm). Excess weight can both easily appear and disappear under the influence of a set of measures, such as diet and increased physical activity.
Obesity, on the contrary, is a very complex and dangerous disease, the main symptoms of which are considered to be rapidly increasing body weight. One can talk about obesity when the amount of useful energy consumed with food is ten times higher than it. As a result, characteristic fat deposits appear on the body of children, which only increase with time.
At the same time, it is not so easy for such a child to lose weight. Most often, a variety of inherited diseases, metabolic disorders and other ailments lead to obesity. This photo of a fat child clearly demonstrates the problem children face with obesity.
What are the causes of overweight in children?
As the well-known pediatrician Komarovsky says: “Children should be thin and with an awl in their ass.” Therefore, problems with extra pounds that your baby has appeared should cause concern, especially among adults. But in order to deal with this trouble, you need to look at the root and identify the causes of excess weight in children. For example, one of the most common causes is heredity. This also includes chronic diseases, heart disease and other ailments that lead to problems with weight.
The second reason, when parents have fat children, is a violation of metabolic processes, slow metabolism, etc. And if in the first and second cases nothing really depends on the child and his parents, then the third reason is directly related to education and proper nutrition. For example, if it is customary in a family to eat exclusively semi-finished products and fatty foods, then a baby growing up in such an environment is unlikely to be slim and thin.
In addition, fat children often grow up in families where parents are too busy to give them proper attention. In other words, an extremely busy mom or dad simply has no time or is too lazy to warm up soup or porridge for their child. Instead, they buy them chips, cookies, french fries, and other tasty but high-calorie foods.
What other situations can lead to childhood obesity?
One of the leading reasons in recent years is the interest of children in computer games. Getting excited, schoolchildren and children younger age simply do not move away from the next gaming application. They literally eat without getting up. But since they do not want to spend time warming up and putting food on a plate, chocolate bars, seeds, flour products, crackers, etc. often become their favorite food. And this is all again very high in calories.
In addition, the fattest children grow up with parents in whose family there are certain social problems. This also includes the difficulties of the child in the team. So, a common situation is when, in the process of communicating with peers, a baby may experience fear, discomfort, and other sensations. If the child fails to discuss his psychological state with his father or mother (or he does not find mutual understanding with them either), the baby begins to "seize" them at the time of a difficult psychological situation.
The setting of certain rules at the table also negatively affects the baby, for example, when the child is regularly reminded that he must eat his portion to the last crumb. As a result, the child is fat, as he gets used to and always tries to follow these rules.
In addition, grandmothers often add fuel to the fire, who now and then try to feed their grandchildren with cookies, freshly baked pancakes, donuts and other goodies from the oven.
What are the causes of excess weight in infants?
Sometimes weight problems are observed not only in children after a year, but also at a younger age. Why is this happening? For example, if you have a fat breastfed baby, then this may indicate an incorrect ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the diet of a nursing mother. Also, genes can be the cause of childhood obesity. That is, obese parents most often give birth to children with similar problems.
If infant is on the fact that one of the reasons for his excessive weight gain is improper preparation of the mixture. Often, mothers dilute the milk formula not strictly according to the instructions, but “by eye”, which leads to overeating. The same thing happens when a baby is fed from a bottle that contains an opening that is too large. As a result, the baby eats food much faster than the satiety signal enters his brain. As a result, the child does not get enough, and the mother gives him another bottle and overfeeds. This photo of a fat child speaks of a similar problem of infancy obesity.
What is child paratrophy?
Paratrophy is a term applied to obese children under 3 years of age. Three stages of this disease are known:
- when the child's weight is more than normal by 10-20%;
- when excess weight exceeds the norm by 25-35%;
- when overweight is above the norm by 40-50%.
If your child is fat and has paratrophy, then he either eats too much or his daily diet is not balanced. These children are characterized by common signs:
- having a very short neck;
- small size of the chest;
- the presence of rounded parts of the body;
- the presence of characteristic fat deposits in the waist, abdomen and hips.
Why is paratrophy dangerous?
Paratrophy is often complicated by allergic reactions, disorders, problems with digestion and metabolism, as well as with the respiratory system. In addition, many experts are simply sure that well-fed children endure SARS much more difficult than children with a graceful figure. As soon as they catch a cold, they begin to have a prolonged runny nose, accompanied by severe swelling of the mucosa and other troubles. Fat while walking and running. He often has shortness of breath and profuse sweating.
What threatens children with obesity?
Childhood obesity can lead to comorbidities. For example, obese children can get sick diabetes, hypertension, cirrhosis of the liver, coronary heart disease. They may also experience:
- cardiovascular diseases;
- high blood pressure;
- atherosclerosis;
- chronic cholecystitis;
- frequent constipation;
- fatty hepatosis.
In addition, a fat child, due to its large body weight, moves less. He has inferiority complexes and difficulties in communicating with peers. A large weight interferes with the normal development of bones, which leads to deformation of the bone skeleton and knee joints.
How to determine if a child is obese or not?
If you have a baby under one year old, and you suspect that he has problems with obesity, you must first check for compliance with the norm of his weight. This can be done according to the table established by the Ministry of Health (see it below). Here is the age and norm in grams. Therefore, for convenience, doctors advise creating a similar plate for yourself and adding your child's weight to it from the moment of birth. Thus, it is possible to determine how much the body weight of a baby or teenager meets the established standard.
You can also determine problems with weight visually (for this, it is worth comparing the external parameters of your child's body with his peers). In addition, a fat child (we will tell you how to lose weight for him later) will gain weight very quickly. This will be seen, first of all, in clothing.
How much the weight corresponds to the age of your baby, the therapist can tell you. It will not be superfluous to contact an endocrinologist.
The child is fat: what to do?
If you find weight deviations from the norm in your child, do not rush to panic. First you need to consult with experts. Remember that being overweight is more of a consequence than a cause. Therefore, it is necessary to initially identify the cause of obesity in a child. To do this, you should make an appointment with an endocrinologist, pass the appropriate tests.
If you have a fat child at 2 years old due to malnutrition, it will not be superfluous to make an appointment with a nutritionist. He will help you make the right diet for you, tell you which foods you can eat and which ones you can’t. will give helpful tips and recommendations.
If a similar problem is observed in an artificial baby, consult a pediatrician about the correct introduction of complementary foods and dosage. Try to add greens to the diet of older children, reduce the amount of easily digestible and harmful carbohydrates, replace sugary carbonated drinks with natural fruit and vegetable juices.
Steam more and bake food in the oven with a minimum amount of fat. Cook jelly and fruit drinks without a large number Sahara. Replace white bread with bran, Borodino, coarse grinding. Introduce fruit dishes into the children's diet. Eliminate snacks in the form of cookies and sweets. Let the baby better eat an apple, carrots, dried fruits, dates, raisins or nuts.
Sport is strength and the path to an ideal figure
Active children are rarely overweight, so children who are prone to obesity should be given to some kind of sport. More often play with them in the yard and on the street in active games, such as football, badminton. An ordinary jump rope perfectly copes with excess body fat. Young children should regularly exercise using a large fitball. In this sense, children's yoga and gymnastics will also be useful.
What not to do with obesity?
When childhood obesity is not recommended to self-medicate. No need to put children on an adult diet or force them to pump the press hard. Everything should be in moderation and agreed with experts. For example, if you decide that your child needs intense physical activity to lose weight, first consult a doctor. Otherwise, ignoring the advice of experts can lead to unpredictable consequences.
You can’t let everything take its course, since the lack of treatment leads to disastrous results for the child.
In a word, watch the weight of your children, walk more in the fresh air, play sports and contact specialists in a timely manner!
Obesity and overweight are the scourge of modern humanity. Both adults and children suffer from them. And quite often, children begin to gain weight at school age. If this problem is started to fight immediately, as soon as it is discovered, it will help to avoid many problems associated with being overweight in adulthood.
How to estimate the weight of a child?
Each person has his own body type, and in medicine there is such a thing as "constitutional body features", and people, including children, are divided into asthenics, normosthenics and hypersthenics. A hypersthenic child cannot be expected to be frail and thin, and vice versa. Therefore, doctors now have a fairly wide corridor for the concept of the norm. And it is often difficult for parents to objectively assess the weight of a child: they can consider it normal with excess weight and, conversely, sound the alarm when there is no reason for this yet.
In order to find out if your child is overweight or already has, there are special tables recommended by the World Health Organization. To assess the correspondence of a child's weight to his age, you need to calculate his BMI (body mass index, English - bodymassindex (BMI)), for which you should divide the weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters. There are quite a lot of online calculators and tables on the Internet for estimating the weight by the calculated index. If the body mass index exceeds the norm (an index corresponding to overweight or obesity), it is worth considering and starting to deal with the problem, since being overweight entails an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Often these are serious diseases that lead to disability at a young age.
Why does the child get better?
The main reason for weight gain at school age is the discrepancy between physical activity and calories consumed. Many modern children aged 9-10 and teenagers have a sedentary lifestyle: the child spends more time at the computer and tablet. On the other hand, the amount of food remains the same, moreover, sometimes a habit appears, playing computer games, there is something else. At the same time, a regular excess of calories appears, which is not consumed due to physical inactivity.
According to ongoing studies (including the National Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology) on the physical activity of children, today's children have physical activity often more than 10 times less than normal. Normally, a child should walk 7-8 thousand steps per day. But with the modern way of life, when a child is taken to school in the morning after breakfast by car, and after school they are also taken home by car, where he immediately sits down for homework or a computer, this is a child’s low motor activity; in the study, only 500-600 steps per day. Accordingly, even without overeating, the calories eaten simply have nowhere to be spent, and they settle in the body with excess weight. Weight gain is also affected by overeating (for example, the habit of the whole family to have a tight dinner), regular consumption of fast food, sweets, sugary carbonated drinks, which are very high in calories.
How to deal with excess weight?
The first thing you need to pay attention to is the correspondence of physical activity to the calories of food eaten. If the child eats rationally, then it is worth taking the child with physical sections. It can be swimming, wrestling, fitness, aerobics. At a minimum, there should be daily morning exercises, daily walks for at least an hour or two. With a significant excess of weight, doctors recommend swimming as a type of exercise, since in this case the load on the musculoskeletal system and the heart is reduced, and the process of weight loss is easier.
If a child eats irrationally, consumes a lot of starchy foods (vermicelli, bakery products, sweets, semi-finished products), if it is customary in the family to have a late and hearty dinner, then parents can contribute to more healthy lifestyle life of the child, rationalizing his diet and changing family rituals.
When to see a doctor?
You should contact a specialist if:
a large weight gain is observed within a month and a half. In this case, you can contact a pediatrician or family doctor who observes the child, or an endocrinologist. An endocrinologist deals with metabolic endocrine disorders that can lead to weight gain;
weight gain is accompanied by the appearance of stretch marks on the skin of a purple, purple-red color, similar to scars. In this case, you must immediately contact an endocrinologist, since such stretch marks indicate the presence of endocrine pathology;
measures taken to lose weight do not work. Sometimes parents may notice that the child does not overeat, and the weight does not go away or increase. In this case, we can talk about the state of insulin resistance, when the body tries to store every calorie in reserve. Sometimes after 12 years, these disorders require medical correction, as they increase the risk of diabetes;
there are complaints from the gastrointestinal tract. Overweight children often have problems with the gastrointestinal tract. In particular, they are much more likely to have reflux disease, which manifests itself in an unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth, bad breath, and heartburn. In this case, a gastroenterologist and a nutritionist should be involved in the fight against excess weight.
Prevention of excess weight:
from the moment a child is born, it is important to pay attention to his proper nutrition. it breast-feeding and the timely introduction of complementary foods, the absence of overfeeding in early childhood;
easily digestible carbohydrates (sugar, muffins, industrial sweets) in the diet of a young child should be minimized;
children should not be taught to sweets, chocolates. Sweets, cookies should be a dessert, not the main meal, this should be remembered by both parents and grandparents;
the child must have adequate physical activity. Be mindful of the number of steps your child needs to take per day. On the student’s phone, you can install a step counting program and find out how much the child walks on average per day. And if the number of steps is much lower than normal, you should add physical activity. It is important to understand that the child eats out, as at school children often buy sweet bars or rolls instead of lunch.
Parents are happy when the baby eats well. But the baby should be a chubby toddler for the first couple of years, and gradually he should stretch and lose weight. And if the child remains plump at 3-5 years and older, this is a cause for parental anxiety. The appearance of excess weight at this age is dangerous. Let's figure out what to do if the child is fat.
How is overweight determined?
In medicine, there are two concepts - "excess mass" and "obesity". Overweight is understood as exceeding the standards for body weight at a certain age, in a given sex and with a certain height of the baby. Usually, fat deposits at this age are not very pronounced - the baby just looks strong. But this weight is a risk factor for true obesity, and obesity is a chronic disease with a pathological change in metabolism.
Obesity is also visible to a non-specialist: the child is larger than his peers, his arms, legs, stomach and hips are full, there is even excess fat on his face.
To clarify the degree of the disease, there are special tables that determine excess weight and the degree of its redundancy. They are based on indicators of height, age and gender. If the child's body weight is about 15% above normal, it is classified as overweight. Anything over this figure is different degrees of obesity.
Why do kids get fat
First of all, the formation of excess weight is a psychological problem: excess weight does not arise from scratch - it is seizure depression, low mobility, pathological eating habits in the family, lack of friends and misunderstanding of loved ones.
Children suffer from their appearance, strive to achieve results in their studies, but become outcasts in the company. This leads to enjoyment candies and sweets - The circle closes. In the subconscious mind, the thought is postponed - "no one needs me, why then lose weight."
Parents themselves support the problem of excess weight, cultivating malnutrition and ignoring the problem until it reaches catastrophic proportions. Often the parents of a fat child are also fat, and they naively believe that “this is our constitution,” and continue to eat sweets, muffins and fatty foods.
Add to piggy bank obese child grandmother, feeding her granddaughters more satisfying and tastier. However, a constantly overstretched stomach requires large amounts of food, the pancreas is also overstressed - diseases appear.
Fat children also happen to eternally busy parents who, instead of communicating, “pay off” children with gifts and sweets, do not prepare normal food, feeding the child with semi-finished products.
Fat child: what to do?
What to do if the child is fat
First of all, you need to “make friends” with an endocrinologist and, under his guidance, begin the fight against excess weight. You may also need the help of a psychologist, and the whole family as a whole - the doctor will create the right motivation for losing weight, and the most effective is losing weight with the whole family.
All family members will need to adhere to dietary restrictions (at least in the presence of a child) in order to set an example for the baby and not tempt him with forbidden food. It is difficult to explain to a child why mom eats fried chicken, and he eats boiled carrots.
It is necessary to limit all potentially harmful and high-calorie foods, replacing them with vegetables, fruits, and low-calorie dairy dishes. And include in the diet the entire set of products that the doctor will recommend.
The basis of the diet will be a gradual reducing the calorie content of meals and the restructuring of the child's eating habits - this cannot be done in one month, weight loss and treatment will be long. Additionally, the child's motor activity should be expanded. Choose workouts according to your strengths and interests. Sports will increase the consumption of calories and increase the tone of the baby's muscles.
The diet itself and its approximate diet will be selected and prescribed by the doctor, taking into account the wishes and preferences of the child, his age, degree of physical activity and many other factors.
Important: you can not apply to the child "adult" and fashionable diets, and abruptly try to lose weight.
How to prevent obesity
Many problems have their roots in the family, and it is necessary to take a critical look at your diet at the time of the birth of your child. It is we, the parents, who form the food culture in the family, it is because of us and our bad habits that children gain extra pounds.
About two months ago, I began to notice that my cousin was too plump for his age of five. I asked my aunt what was the matter, because before that he had developed quite normally, he was even fragile, but here the fat on the belly is soft, and his cheeks are like those of a hamster, even his eyes have become smaller.
The aunt sighed heavily and began to complain that, they say, they sent her to her grandmother for three weeks, while they themselves went on vacation, but she was not at a loss, let's feed everyone in a row: sweets, donuts, pies, buns ... did not refuse him anything. And almost a month later, she returned to them such a “pie”, which even at home began to burst everything in a row!
I really started to get worried. You can’t re-educate your grandmother, you’ll only quarrel, and Dimka will really suffer, and pretty soon. In our country, there is no special sympathy for overweight people, and children in general are cruel people ... Dimka needs to be rescued. I immediately agreed with my aunt that now we go to my grandmother a maximum of once a week.
After looking at dozens of books for parents and climbing the Internet, we concluded: cheeses, nuts, fatty meat and fish are excluded from the diet, broths based on them, and pasta, sweets, lemonade and high-calorie fruits are also gone. Together we made approximately the following diet for our boy:
Breakfast. Dimka had breakfast now with buckwheat porridge with a small addition of milk, after which he drank compote or coffee with milk. If Dimka began to moan about what he wanted to eat, and the time for dinner had not yet come, his aunt would give him a cucumber or a small sandwich: bread and butter in a gram ratio of about 30/5.
Dinner. Here you can already eat more thoroughly. Dimka usually ate chicken soup (200 grams, that is, a small plate) with a slice of black bread or vegetable soup, the broth of which was based on lean beef. For the second, Dima received a couple of cabbage rolls with a total weight of 200 grams, and for dessert - an apple or a cup of compote.
afternoon tea. At first, our baby ate one hundred grams of chicken or beef, because it was difficult for him to quickly adapt to a new diet. Then Dimka began to miss mugs of one percent yogurt, sometimes his aunt poured him yogurt. That was enough for dinner.
Dinner. Dimka almost always ate vegetable stew, as he loves it very much. But in addition to the stew, you can give the child 150 grams of mashed potatoes with green peas or fried fish (no more than 70-80 grams), as well as a glass of kefir (200 grams) and bread with cheese mass (30/40g).
At night, Dimka drank a glass of kefir or milk and calmly went to bed. Already in a month and a half, my brother returned to his former form, my grandmother, of course, wailed, but what can you do with her, an old woman? I think that this diet can help your child if he also has problems with being overweight.
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