It has been scientifically proven through researches that the average serve size of humans has increased over time. A bottle of a soft drink such as Coca Cola was much smaller twenty years ago as compared to today. Our lifestyle has also impacted how we look at and consume food. From having more time to cook proper three meals a day and sitting around a table for a family meal, people, today are looking for easy accessible meals, sometimes ready-made, and are consuming it in front of screens rather than people. This, according to Dr Khillan, a well-known and regarded paediatrician from Melbourne, has also started to affect the health of not only kids but infants.
listen to his full interview and his views on sugar tax here.
What is childhood obesity?
Overweight and childhood obesity are terms you might hear when children are above their healthiest weight and have too much body fat or an abnormal amount of body fat. This is a health risk for children.
Obesity happens when the energy children get from food and drinks is greater than the energy they burn up through physical activity, growing and other body processes. This extra energy gets stored as fat.
What causes childhood obesity?
According to Dr Khillan, the causes are a mix of lifestyle, genetics and changing habits. Adults and kids who are making unhealthy food and drink choices, which leads to an overall unhealthy family habits, are more at risk of being obese. For example, eating takeaway or junk food like burgers and fries, sugar loaded soft drinks and off the shelf juices. These are the foods that are high in salt, fat and sugar and will harm the health of kids and adults alike.
Lack of physical activity is another major factor. The more sedentary the lifestyle, the more people are at risk of putting on weight. Driving everywhere, lack of play time outdoors and spending more time sitting on the couch in front of the TV or iPad is unhealthy and will enable fat to deposit in the bady.
Family genetics plays a part in the way that kids whose parents are overweight are at more risk of being obese themselves. Dr Khillan also points out that overweight people also have a different perception towards weight. People who are themselves 100kilos or over, will find an overweight child at 60 kilos as normal.
Plus, there are other environmental factors that influence the health of a child, for example, family setting, what’s being packed in the lunch box and whether a child is eating alone or with family and at the table of in front of TV or another electronic screen.
What are healthy food and drink choices?
Source: Google
If a child is offered a range of healthy nutritious food, it will help him grow and develop in a healthy way. Healthy nutritious foods include vegetables, fruits, grains, reduced-fat dairy, meat, fish, chicken, eggs and legumes like peas, beans and lentils.
Physical activity
Source: ABC Australia
You can encourage your child to be physically active by walking when possible and playing outdoors. Physical activity will:
- Balance your child’s energy intake
- Control your child’s appetite
- Decrease disease
- Increase social interaction
Family habits
Your child is more likely to make healthy food choices and be active if she sees you eating healthily and being active. Young children do as you do, so modelling healthy eating and regular exercise can have a big impact.
Sugar Tax
Source: NDTV
There have been calls to implement sugar tax in Australia to reduce the consumption of sugar and as a result reduce the rate of obesity in Australia. But is this alone enough to tackle the problem?
According to Dr Khillan, implementing a sugar tax alone cannot solve the entire problem as we are still allowing junk food and drink to be advertised regularly over the media to entice consumers in to buying unhealthy stuff. Research into countries that have already implemented the tax has shown that the consumption of sugar decreased which in return only reduced obesity by 1%. Although 1 per cent is a positive result, it is not enough to eliminate the problem. Dr khillan believes that reduced media coverage of unhealthy products, education about healthy lifestyle combined with sugar tax might be a better solution.
If you would like to share your story about obesity or your views on this topic, you can email on preeti.mccarthy@sbs.com.au.
