Sir,
It is alarming that India has second largest number of obese children in the world after China(DE, June14, 2017).According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, a whopping 14.4 million kids in our country have excess weight and suffer from health related problems such as high Blood Pressure, breathing problems etc as they grow up.The obese children may also develop psychological problems such as anxiety, depression and low self esteem.Obesity in children is a serious problem.It is caused due to genetic reasons and reduced physical activity and intake of high calorie and low nutrient foods.But whatever be the cause, the growing obesity in children is a matter of concern.These days children are so busy in watching television, browsing networking sites, playing video games and texting messages that they have little time and desire to play games or take physical exercise.
Moreover, children are fond of fast food such as burger, pizza,noodles etc a lot which have very little nutrient content. Therefore, it is the duty of parents to adopt healthy food patterns in their family and motivate children to eat home cooked and nutritious food and fruits.Moreover, parents themselves ought to undertake activities which involve exercise for the body so that their children may adopt them.Parents should also plan family activities such as walking, jogging, swimming, cycling etc in order to provide fun to the children and involve them in physical activity.Parents should be supportive to their children in controlling obesity and under no circumstances should they lower the morale of their children by calling them obese or by other such names which may lower their self respect.They ought to remember that the children’s feelings about themselves will depend on the feelings of their parents about them.Children should also be encouraged to play games and sports of their choice and the parents should fix their time for watching TV, playing video games and using social networking sites.
Yours etc….
Ashok Sharma,
Udhampur.
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