Signs Your Child Is Overweight

By Bhadra Kamalasanan

Obesity is unhealthy. An obese child could be a worse scenario because children are expected to be fit and fine. An early obesity could cause them numerous health problems when they grow older. This is why parents are advised to allow their children to play more in the open rather than letting them sit indoors and play video games.

The fact is that childhood obesity has risen up at an alarming rate and kids are starting to exhibit diseases that are normally found in adults, such as diabetes, and heart diseases.

Signs Your Child Is Overweight

If you can treat your child’s obesity at an early stage, then you can reverse much of the health problems that he or she may face as a grown up. You can alter your child’s future by gifting him or her beautiful and healthy today.

PROTEIN RICH SNACKS FOR KIDS

Here is how you can recognise that your child is suffering from obesity.

Lack of Sleep
If your child is unable to sleep at night then that could be a possible risk factor for obesity. There is a new trend among children for going to sleep late and that combined with too little physical exercise leads to poor sleep. Two hormones called, leptin and ghrelin come to play here and if your child does not get enough sleep then his or her leptin levels will be low and ghrelin high. This change in hormone level will make your child eat more.

Lack of Physical Activity
Your child is sure to suffer from obesity when he or she is not doing enough physical exercises. Your child could be eating all the right foods, but at the end of the day due to lack of physical exercises he or she is putting on a lot of weight. Also, long periods without any exercise can contribute to your child’s obesity and too much of indoor time watching television and playing video games is very wrong. An obese child will most definitely like to stay away from outdoor games.

Eating Junk
Junk food is one of the greatest causes for an obese person and if your child is a regular at the local burger joint then you need to be alarmed. Eating fried foods and snacks can be one of the major contributors to obesity and you know your child is obese when he or she just cannot quit all that junk. Overeating is also a very big factor here, and overeating of junk can be disastrous. All the fats, sugar, and carbohydrates can destroy your child’s body.

Drinking Soda
One sure sign of childhood obesity is a child who is fonder of flavoured soda than anything else. These drinks are not at all healthy for your child’s body and he or she needs to kick the habit at the earliest. Soda and juice contains huge amount of sugar that can be disastrous for your child and can even lead to an early diabetes. Get your child to drink water instead.

It is best to lay some ground rules right at the beginning, before your child can take things to the next level towards health destruction.

Story first published: Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 19:07 [IST]
Read more about: weight loss obesity