Child Obesity - Physical Activity

While childhood obesity is easy to diagnose, it is not easy to treat. In fact, the best way to prevent and treat the phenomenon known as childhood obesity is to simply encourage a healthy lifestyle at home. Kids are not the best ones at changing their own eating habits and physical exercise habits. They need the help of their parents and guardians.

Prevention of obesity ultimately begins at home. For children and young adults dealing with obesity, it is best to evaluate the individual’s situation, taking in to consideration environmental, genetic, and metabolic concerns while treating the arising physical and psychological damage that has arisen. An obese child’s eating plan should also come with an exercise plan. Long term counseling is often needed to deal with self esteem issues relating to obesity that can effect the child’s performance in the real world.

Parents should keep in mind that weight loss is not a healthy or proper method for young children to employ, as their bodies are still developing. Unless a doctor assigns your child to be put on a diet for specific medical reasons, dieting should not be encouraged in young children, as it could deprive them of the nutrients and energy they need to grow.

Besides eating healthy meals, one of the best ways of losing weight is to engage in physical activity in one’s spare time. One of the sad facts of our time is that young people have fewer and fewer chances to be physically active. In elementary and primary schools, quite often there is a lack of space and equipment for serious physical education, not to mention fewer and fewer teachers with specialized training in this area. Children spent the vast majority of their time at school sitting down behind a desk. The vast majority of six to eight year old in the United Kingdom are allowed only thirty minutes of regulated physical education in their weekly school curriculums! The game fields and playgrounds are being sold off or abandoned. At home, children are discouraged from playing outside due to their parents’ concerns with safety.

Here’s one idea: Instead of blaming technology for all our problems, is there a way that technology can be utilized to help children become more physically active?

Some video games are encouraging just that. While video games have a bad reputation for causing children to lead sedentary existences, some new games have encouraged physical activity, integrating such acts as golf swings, dance, and martial arts movements in to their programming.

This new form of combining fun with technological advancement has been christened “extertainment,” also known as “exergaming.” Some schools in the United States have even adapted this form of exercise as a substitute for activities such as baseball. While exertainment has of course been controversial to some extents, it has proven to be largely successful, in that students often choose to use the equipment at lunch time and after school – typically times of relaxation when students are sedentary.