Childhood Obesity....... What Is The Way Out

Hi friends. Happy new year. May this year usher in God's blessings like never before. Amen.

Yesterday, I had an encounter with a baby who was just 6 months but weighed 11kg. The child was being nursed exclusively on breast milk. He was yet to be weaned into the family diet. I wowed because it meant that his weight for age was 2x normal. The expected weight at six months is about 6kg. And a year old child is expected to weigh 10kg. So you can understand why the child's weight wowed me. As a physician, I really did not know what to do. I could only imagine all the complications of obesity that he child was at risk of. I could not even share it with the mother because I did not have a solution for her. Would I tell her that she should not feed the child if he was hungry. No! I could not do that. Would I want starve a six month old baby. What offence did he commit. And to think that he has not started eating solid foods. How would dieting work? I could only hope that the baby loses the weight as he grows older. Maybe when he starts crawling, standing and walking.

Below is the picture of world's most obese toddler who weighs 19kg at 18 months. On a lighter note, one would almost shit in one's pant to carry him. Lol.

This really got me thinking because most mothers want very big babies. They feel it s a thing to be proud of. This occurs especially in the affluent. People brag about how well fed their children are. It's not bad thing to feed our children well. Children must eat balanced diet. I then went down on memory lane. What were we eating in our days? I remember days of akara and ogi, moinmoin and eko, asaro with efo riro, amala, tuwo, egbo(corn meal), ekuru etc. We ate well then. The foods I earlier mentioned contain the right amount of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, fruits and vegetables. And here we are today bouncing in health. But what do we give our children nowadays? Indomie, Spagetti, Bobo, Ice cream, meat pie , Burgers. All the things that we did not eat, we want our children to eat. Because we can afford it abi. 

If we do not feed our children appropriately, our eyes shall see the things that our parents eyes did not see. Now we have juvenile DIabetes Mellitus, early onset Hypertension( seen now in young people of about 18 years), Early onset osteoarthritis etc. I am sure none of us wants this. So, let us do the right thing by feeding our children only on BALANCED DIET. 

 

Thanks very much for reading. This is just food for thought. CIAO.