Keep the children moving

My daughter has always been fat, but it didn’t bother me much until I realized that I have been buying her clothes too often because she easily outgrows them. The fact that at the age of 7 she is a size 14 added to my worry. I had to go to the teens department instead of the children’s just to buy her clothes. We sometimes even share shirts.

Though her pediatrician assured me that she is not obese, he still stressed on the fact that she is at risk of being one.

I started watching her habits and I noticed that she do love to eat but in minimal amount. She doesn’t eat big meals, she prefer small snacks between small meals. I said to myself, it is not the meal that makes her fat, because I know lots of kids who eat more than her but are not big.

Then I noticed her favorite passtime and thought to myslef that I had hit the target.

My daughter is a TV buff who could stay in front of the boob for hours not minding if the show has been played over and over again. She tries to do other activities while watching, but these would be activities that would enable her to still stay in front of the TV.

I read in a magazine once that children who spend long hours watching TV tend to have little time to do physical activities. This results to slower metabolism and the build up of fats.

Indeed, my daughter doesn’t play much anymore. I remembered when I enrolled her in swimming class, she wasn’t that big then. But after that summer, even with the school starting already, she gained weight at a high rate.

Childhood obesity has become a global problem as said in TIME magazine’s August 2003 issue. The Philippines was mentioned as one of the countries to have an increasing rate of childhood obesity.
While obesity could be hereditary I still agree with the experts in saying that lack of physical activities has a great contribution.

Technology has a great deal to do with this. Now more children prefer to sit in front of the computers to play instead of grabbing a ball and shooting baskets. Many kids prefer riding those big battery operated cars/motorcycles instead of bicycles.

This is not to say that we have to stop our children from using these hi-tech toys, but we should let them sweat sometimes. We have to keep the children moving.

A FEW SUGGESTIONS!

Childrens’ attitude towards physical activities would contribute a great deal to their doing it. They have to enjoy it to appreciate it. They to have to have confidence also to go through with it. Parent’s ought to encourage children to be involved in physical activies and sometimes it is good if we involve ourselves in their activities as well. So here are some tips on how kids would sweat…

· After they arrive from school and have rested, let them play with other children. If there are no other children in the house take some time to play with them.

· Enroll them in a sports class. This way they will be able to meet other kids and share interests with them and eventually enjoy attending the class.

· Let them walk from time to time. Go out on weekends and take a walk. Bring them to the mall or better yet to the park for a fresher air too.