Childhood Obesity: A Growing Concern for Parents

The best way to prevent your child from becoming overweight or obese is for the entire family to adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes eating right   eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages like soda, limit the amount of juices, and select whole-wheat foods. A healthy lifestyle also includes exercise. In fact, participating in simple regular physical activities with your child, like walking around the block or riding a bicycle, is probably the single most important thing parents can do to prevent their child from becoming obese or overweight.

Key points for parents to know:

• Being an overweight or obese child is unfair. Genetics account for up to 80 percent of childhood obesity and overweight diagnoses. Unfortunately, we can’t change genetics, so we focus on changing those things in a child’s environment that can lead to unhealthy lifestyles, and ultimately a diagnosis of overweight or obesity.
  
  
• Overweight and obese diagnoses in childhood are dangerous. There are roughly 20 individual medical problems associated with childhood obesity, including diabetes, high blood pressure, bone and joint problems, psychological diagnoses like depression and low self-esteem, decreased liver function and a host of others. We are dedicated to identifying these medical problems as early as possible so that patients receive the best treatment possible.
  
  
• More emphasis should be placed on a healthy lifestyle rather than weight loss alone. The most important goal for an overweight or obese child is NOT to lose weight but to adopt a healthier lifestyle, including exercise and eating right. Overweight or obese people who have incorporated exercise and healthier eating habits and still do NOT lose weight, or possibly even gain weight, have been shown to have better outcomes, fewer obesity-related medical conditions than the average-weight person with an unhealthy lifestyle.

If your doctor has diagnosed your child as being obese or overweight and you are looking for help to adopt a healthy lifestyle, call the Doernbecher Healthy Lifestyles Clinic for an appointment, 503 418-2000.

 

 

Note:  Article reprinted courtesy Oregon Health & Science University.
http://www.ohsu.edu/health/health-topics/topic.cfm?id=14001&parent=11969