Young ones need attention
WORLD Obesity Day aims to encourage and support practical solutions to help people achieve and maintain a healthy weight as well as reverse the obesity crisis.
Organised by the World Obesity Federation on Oct 11, this year’s theme called for urgent government action to end childhood obesity.
The reason childhood obesity was picked as this year’s theme is because very few countries are actually taking action against this damaging health issue that can have far-reaching consequences on health, education attainment and quality of life of the child as she transitions into adulthood.
The progress towards ending childhood obesity has been slow and inconsistent globally. Moreover, the obesity rate is rising in many developing countries.
It is about to get much worse according to the World Obesity Federation as the forecast for obese children and teenagers is set to exceed 265 million people by 2025 compared to 224 million obese children reported by the World Bank in 2013.
Call for change
As recommended by the World Health Organization Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, the 69th World Health Assembly held in May was committed to establishing national strategies to champion the cause.
The commission highlighted combinations of interventions that are the most likely to tackle childhood and adolescent obesity. Its six pillars are:
Intake of healthy food
Early childhood diet and daily activity Physical activity
Health, nutrition and physical activity for school-aged children Preconception and pregnancy care Weight management
However, government intervention alone will not be adequate in combating the problem. Parents are in the driving seat when it comes to controlling their children’s weight, but that could be a problem in itself.
One shocking example was when celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tried introducing healthy eating habits among English schoolchildren a few years ago in one of his television programmes. As the majority of students were clearly unhappy with the school’s new lunch menu, parents were actually filmed sneaking junk food through the school fence to their children.
In a similar series that was filmed in the United States, many students that were unhappy with Oliver’s lunch options stopped consuming unsweetened milk and dropped out of the school lunch programme after just two months into the new menu.
Although these may be isolated incidents, it brings to question parents’ ability to say no to their children or, for that matter, understand themselves what is healthy and what is not. Will parents give in to letting children eat junk food or will they persist in providing only nutritious food for their children and teach them about what constitutes a proper diet?
It is therefore a big question mark on how much these children will weigh once they reach adolescence, let alone the extent of the damage to their health in adulthood. One thing is for certain, reducing childhood obesity levels can only succeed if children receive proper parental guidance paired with better policies and regulations.