Childhood Obesity Linked to Unhealthy Lifestyle

Children who are obese are more likely to eat school lunch instead of packed lunch from home and spend two hours a day watching TV or playing video game.

Children who are obese are more likely to consume school lunch instead of packed lunch from home and spend two hours a day watching TV or playing video game. This new trend in lifestyle leads to childhood obesity, says a study.

The study was conducted by the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and includes 1,003 Michigan 6th graders in a school-based health program.

Childhood Obesity - Criteria - Causes - Complications, Treatment
Childhood obesity is one of the most serious health challenges in the developing countries and needs to be understood and tackled effectively.

The results suggest unhealthy habits are feeding the childhood obesity trend.

"For the extremely overweight child, genetic screening may be a consideration," said study senior author Kim A. Eagle.

"For the rest, increasing physical activity, reducing recreational screen time and improving the nutritional value of school lunches offers great promise to begin a reversal of current childhood obesity trends," Eagle said.

Tips to Control Obesity in Children
Obesity is resistant to instant remedies and its management is a long-term endeavor. Here are a few tips to control obesity in children.

Children involved in the study participate in Project Healthy Schools, school-based program supported by communities and the U-M Health System to teach middle school students about healthy lifestyles, in hopes of reducing their future risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Researchers found that 58 percent of obese children had watched two hours of TV in the previous day, compared to 41 percent of non-obese children.

Quiz on Diabetes
Diabetes has replaced every other condition to become the fastest growing lifestyle disease, globally. This disease also impacts children. Some people are more inclined to develop diabetes than others. Do you belong to the high- risk group? Spend 5 minutes to find out.

45 percent of obese students always ate school lunch, but only 34 percent of non-obese students ate school lunch.

Significantly fewer obese kids exercised regularly, took physical education classes, or were a member of a sports team.

U-M Study Says Childhood Obesity Linked to Health Habits
Researchers have always wondered if some children are genetically tuned to be overweight, or is lifestyle to blame for childhood obesity?

Because the eating and exercise patterns of obese children were so different than their normal weight peers, researchers concluded that lifestyle was more closely linked with childhood obesity, than genetics.

The study was published in the American Heart Journal.

Source-ANI