Everyone likes pink-cheeked booties, who smile and look at their parents with joyful eyes. These chubby arms and legs in folds in infancy delight, and after three or more years they are alarming. And the older your circling little pean becomes, the more difficult it will be for him to communicate on equal terms with peers. What if your baby is fat?
Obesity and overweight: what is the difference?
Often such concepts as “obesity” and “overweight” are confused. In most cases, they are considered to be identical. However, this is not quite true. The fact is that far from always, when a child is fat, he suffers from obesity. Almost each of us has our own normal weight, which corresponds to our age and height.
If, for some reason, this norm is violated (in the direction of increasing it), then this will indicate the appearance of excess weight in you (i.e., above the norm). Excess weight can both easily appear and disappear under the influence of a set of measures, for example, diet and increased physical activity.
Obesity, on the contrary, is a very complex and dangerous disease, the main symptoms of which are considered to be rapidly increasing body weight. We can talk about obesity in the case when the amount of useful energy consumed with food is tens of times higher than its daily consumption. As a result of this, characteristic fat deposits appear on the body in children, which only increase over time.
At the same time, losing such an extra weight to such a child is not so easy. Most often, various inherited diseases, metabolic disorders and other ailments lead to obesity. This photo of a fat child clearly demonstrates the problem that children face in obesity.
What are the causes of overweight in children?
As the famous children's doctor Komarovsky says: "Children should be thin and with an awl in the priest." Therefore, the problems with extra pounds that appeared in your baby should be of concern, especially in adults. But in order to deal with this trouble, you need to look at the root and identify the causes of excess weight in children. For example, heredity is considered one of the most common causes. This also includes chronic diseases, heart ailments and other ailments that lead to problems with weight.
The second reason when fat children grow up in parents is a violation of metabolic processes, a slow metabolism, etc. And if in the first and second case nothing really depends on the child and his parents, then the third reason is directly related to upbringing and proper nutrition. For example, if in a family it is customary to eat exclusively semi-finished foods and fatty foods, then a baby growing up in such an environment is unlikely to be slim and thin.
In addition, fat children often grow up in families where parents are too busy to pay due attention to them. In other words, an extremely busy mom or dad simply has no time or laziness to warm up his child’s soup or porridge. Instead, they buy chips, cookies, french fries and other tasty, but high-calorie foods.
What other situations can lead to childhood obesity?
One of the leading reasons in recent years is the enthusiasm for children with computer games. Entering the excitement, schoolchildren and young children simply do not depart from the next gaming application. They literally eat without getting up. But since they don’t want to spend time warming up and putting food on a plate, chocolate bars, seeds, flour products, crackers, etc. are often their favorite foods. And all this again is very high-calorie.
In addition, the thickest children grow up with parents whose family has certain social problems. This also includes the difficulties of the child in the team. So, a situation is common when, in the process of communicating with peers, a baby may experience fear, discomfort and other sensations. If the child does not manage to discuss his psychological state with his father or mother (or he does not find mutual understanding with them), the baby begins to “seize” them at the time of a difficult psychological situation.
The setting of certain rules at the table also negatively affects the baby, for example, when the child is regularly reminded that he should eat his portion to the last crumb. As a result, the child is fat, as he gets used to it and tries to follow these rules always.
In addition, grandmothers often add fuel to the fire, who continually try to feed grandchildren with cookies, freshly baked pancakes, donuts and other goodies from the oven.
What are the causes of excess weight in infants?
Sometimes weight problems are observed not only in children after a year, but also at a younger age. What is this happening for? For example, if you have a fat baby while breastfeeding, then this may indicate an incorrect ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the diet of a nursing mother. Genes can also cause childhood obesity. That is, in obese parents, children with similar problems are most often born.
If the baby is on artificial feeding, then one of the reasons for its excessive weight gain is improper preparation of the mixture. Often, mothers breed the milk mixture not strictly according to the instructions, but "by eye", which leads to overeating. The same thing happens when feeding a baby from a bottle containing a hole too large. As a result, the baby eats food much faster than a signal of saturation arrives in his brain. As a result, the child does not eat up, and the mother gives him another bottle and overfeeds. This photo of a fat child speaks of a similar problem of infant obesity.
What is pediatric paratrophy?
Paratrophy is a term applied to children under 3 years of age who are obese. Three stages of this disease are known:
- when the weight of the child is more than normal by 10-20%;
- when excess weight exceeds the norm by 25-35%;
- when overweight is above the norm by 40-50%.
If your child is fat and has paratrophy, then he either eats too much or his daily diet is not balanced. For these children, common signs are characteristic:
- the presence of a very short neck;
- small chest size;
- the presence of rounded parts of the body;
- the presence of characteristic fat deposits in the waist, abdomen and hips.
Why is paratrophy dangerous?
Paratrophy is often complicated by allergic reactions, disorders of the endocrine system, problems with digestion and metabolism, as well as with the respiratory system. In addition, many experts are simply sure that well-fed children are much more difficult to tolerate acute respiratory viral infections than children with an elegant figure. As soon as they catch a cold, they begin to have a protracted runny nose, accompanied by severe swelling of the mucous membrane and other troubles. A fat child breathes heavily while walking and running. He often has shortness of breath and excessive sweating.
What threatens children with obesity?
Childhood obesity can lead to the appearance of concomitant diseases. For example, obese children can get diabetes, hypertension, cirrhosis, coronary heart disease. They may also have:
- cardiovascular diseases;
- high blood pressure;
- atherosclerosis;
- chronic cholecystitis;
- frequent constipation;
- fatty hepatosis.
In addition, a fat child due to its large body mass moves less. He has inferiority complexes and difficulties in communicating with peers. A large weight interferes with the normal development of bones, which leads to deformation of the skeleton and knee joints.
How to determine if a child is obese or not?
If you have a baby under one year old and you suspect that he has problems with obesity, you must first check his weight for compliance with the norm. This can be done according to the table established by the Ministry of Health (see below). Here is the age and norm in grams. Therefore, for convenience, doctors advise you to create a similar tablet for yourself and add the weight of your baby to it from the moment you are born. Thus, it is possible to determine how much the body weight of the baby or adolescent meets the established standard.
You can also identify weight problems visually (to do this, compare the external parameters of your child’s body with his peers). In addition, a fat child (how to lose weight with him, we will tell later) will gain weight very quickly. This will be seen primarily in clothing.
How much weight corresponds to the age of your baby, the therapist can tell you. It will not be superfluous to turn to an endocrinologist.
Fat child: what to do?
If you find weight deviations from the norm in your child, do not rush to panic. First you need to consult with specialists. Remember that excessive fullness is more a consequence than a cause. Therefore, it is necessary to initially identify the cause of child obesity. To do this, make an appointment with the endocrinologist, pass the appropriate tests.
If you have a fat child at 2 years old due to malnutrition, it will not be superfluous to make an appointment with a nutritionist. It will help to make your diet right, tell you which foods you can eat and which ones not. Will give useful tips and tricks.
If a similar problem is observed in an artificial baby, consult a pediatrician about the correct introduction of complementary foods and about the dosage. Try to add greens to the diet of older children, reduce the amount of easily digestible and harmful carbohydrates, and replace sweet carbonated drinks with natural fruit and vegetable juices.
Steam more and bake foods in the oven with a minimum amount of fat. Cook jelly and fruit drinks without a lot of sugar. Replace white bread with bran, Borodino, wholemeal. Introduce fruit dishes into your children's diet. Eliminate snacks in the form of cookies and sweets. Let the baby eat apple, carrots, dried fruits, dates, raisins or nuts.
Sport is power and the path to a perfect figure
Active children are rarely full, because children who are prone to obesity should be given to any sport. More often play active games, such as soccer, badminton, with them in the yard and on the street. An ordinary jump rope copes with excess fat deposits perfectly. Young children should regularly exercise using a large fitball. Will be useful in this sense, and children's yoga, gymnastics.
What should not be done with obesity?
In childhood obesity, self-medication is not recommended. No need to put children on an adult diet or force them to pump the press hard. Everything should be in moderation and agreed with specialists. For example, if you decide that a child needs intense physical activity to lose weight, consult with a doctor first. Otherwise, ignoring the advice of specialists can lead to unpredictable consequences.
You can not let everything go by its own accord, since the lack of treatment leads to disastrous results and psychological problems of the child.
In a word, keep an eye on the weight of your children, take more walks in the fresh air, go in for sports and contact specialists in a timely manner!