Reticulum Rex Medical Centre

Posts Tagged ‘energy expenditure’

Child obesity, ie, overweight in children is a growing reality for 15 years: more and more children and adolescents are over weight, both in size and age. For example, a 10 year old boy weighs 7 kilos.

In addition to genetic and environmental factors, childhood obesity is the cause in the lack of healthy food education by the adults around children. Parents, brothers, uncles, grandparents and teachers we forget that part of education is to teach the child to eat a variety of food and encourage them to try new flavors.

In the fast pace of our lives we forget that the main cause of child obesity is poor nutrition education, letting the child choose his own pleasure, which always tastes lean toward sweet or too salty.

It is key to help the child to eat everything, leaving no free choice feeding to avoid future health problems. A balanced diet is important, but should not be imposed, but agreed with the child. It is also important to perform daily physical activity, which helps maintain healthy body and heart.

Treatment and Counseling
The methods to reduce the degree of obesity in terms of behavior modification should first analyze the behavior focused on actions related to food (type and frequency of food consumed) and the background and consumption behavior food).

We must lead the way with a family basis. The family needs to get a set of skills for behavior change is appropriate. Parents should be aware of the poor eating habits and activity of your child (or family in general), and the behavior of their parents to the problem.

Behavior should be amended in a slow and gradual, but permanent, making small changes only when they have managed to establish previous changes.

Emotional support is very necessary during adolescence, a period in which worsen the emotional problems of children with obesity and family, so it is advisable to work in groups to support family impact.

Obesity must be detected and treated early to prevent complications and persistence in adulthood. Successful treatment of obesity lies in the reduction of caloric intake relative to energy expenditure, bearing in mind that eating patterns continue to be inculcated eating habits and appropriate lifestyle that promote long term weight loss in relation to their size and age and to maintain your ideal weight without affecting the growth and development of children.

The three pillars of treatment of obesity are the modification of intake, increased physical activity and changing eating behavior. Treatment of obesity in children is usually done in three phases:

a) Phase of start of treatment: do not claim to reduce weight but also stabilize and instill eating habits and healthy lifestyle. Therefore requires a change in behavior around the family.

b) Phase adherence to treatment: You must ensure understanding, acceptance and implementation of the proposed treatment and can start to set goals to start the weight loss. It required close monitoring of the child to determine their capacity to adhere to treatment and continue to advance in it.

c) Maintenance phase: During this stage we must continue to monitor the consolidation of eating habits and regular physical exercise.