Increasing numbers of children are being affected with obesity at a very young age. This disorder causes excessive wear and tear on the main weight-bearing joints of the body in children, especially the knee, foot and hip joints. It is important for children to maintain healthy body weight to avoid these and other disabling complications.
What is Obesity?
Obesity is a condition in which the person’s weight is deemed to be abnormally above the healthy weight limits. Body Mass Index (BMI) is the ratio of height to weight in a person and is useful for calculating the healthy weight range for a person of according to their height.
Obesity is also known as being overweight and childhood obesity is determined when the child has a BMI of,Guest Posting or around, 85% or lower than 95%. Obesity is considered to be when the child has a BMI of more than 95%.
It can feel like finding a resolution to the problem of obesity is out of reach. Read this article to get more.
It can feel like finding an answer to the problem of obesity is never going to happen. Unless you know what obesity truly is,Guest Posting lengthy and repeated dieting won’t help long term. Unless you know the real reason behind your weight problem, dieting can’t help fix you long term.
Due to all the misinformation from Hollywood, most people don’t realize what causes obesity. Scientists have spent untold amounts of labor looking for the cause of obesity but have encountered little. Because of this, society turned to the old myth of obesity that has stacked injustice upon the obese since forever.
Myth #1: The only way to get fat is if you choose to eat too much.
The cause of obesity could not be so easy, insisted doctor ATW Simeons, who owned a clinic in Rome in the 1950s. Simeons believed that obesity was not caused by overeating, but that overeating was caused by obesity.
So Dr. Simeons few up the following “maxims,” or truths, to help develop a basic framework for studying obesity. By following these maxims, Simeons made the discoveries that led to the HCG diet and eventually HCG drops.
Maxim #1: Obesity is a disorder, not just a result of overeating.
The definition of a medical disorder is a breakdown in some part of your body. So obesity starts when a specific part of the body malfunctions.
Maxim #2: The only way to accumulate abnormal fat is if you have the obesity disorder.
This maxim means that you can gain only a certain amount amount of weight if you don’t have the obesity disorder. Unnoticeable fat gains turn into big ones only when your “obesity organ” has failed.
Maxim #3: Eating too much does not cause obesity. Instead, obesity causes overeating.
This is why those cakes, chocolates, and creams call so loudly and feel so satisfying to eat. Such attacks of hunger aren’t the same thing as compulsive eating — they aren’t psychological. They’re physical. It simply takes more food to maintain an overweight or obese body. The obese body’s desire for unhealthy food comes from experience. Sugar, in particular, gives the quickest energy response.
Maxim #4: Despite how little (or how well) you eat, if you have the obesity disorder, you will not be skinny.
As we know from Maxim #1, obesity is a physical malfunction. Once that occurs, your obesity ensures that you will begin to put on the pounds. It’s part of how obesity works that your fat will become locked away. Even when you try to eat healthy, your abnormal fat deposits are restricted from use except as a last resort.
Maxim #5: If you do not suffer from obesity, you will never be overweight, no matter how much you eat.
Some people can eat whatever they want and still stay small and slender. Life is cool like that when you don’t have the disorder of obesity.
Free From the Weight of Injustice
Now that you know the truth about obesity, you can free yourself from the discrimination that our society treats you with. It’s not your fault that your body has malfunctioned.
These truths have given us more than a wonderful insight — they’ve given us a possible cure for obesity itself. The maxims that help us comprehend obesity also enabled doctor Simeons to develop a way to repair the specific bodily mechanism that causes obesity. This system is known as the HCG diet with HCG drops. HCG affects the part of the body that causes obesity — the diencephalon. HCG corrects the diencephalon’s problem and frees you to lose those previously inaccessible fat deposits by following a specific low-calorie diet.
What are the causes of Childhood Obesity?
Normally, obesity is said to be related to having excessive amount of calories with insufficient amount of exercise. However, the actual cause for childhood obesity is much more complex and is often a combination of genes, level of activity, diet as well as the childhood environment.
A child is more likely to be obese if one of the parents also suffers from obesity. These are certain environmental factors that can contribute towards the development of childhood obesity:
Prevalence of an unhealthy and ‘fast food’ diet involving sugar-drinks.
Promotion of fast (junk) food.
Insufficient/no physical activities in schools.
Increased sizes of portions.
Lack of breastfeeding.
Greater media and TV exposure at an early age leading to lethargic nature.
In some cases, obesity can be also a form of medical condition or disease. Other underlying conditions that are give rise to obesity are hyper-thyroid, Cushing’s syndrome, etc.
What are the effects of Childhood Obesity?
Obesity in a child is normally a cause for concern in itself apart from the various complications that can arise due to it in the child. A child with obesity is more likely to develop:
High blood pressure /high cholesterol leading to cardiovascular diseases.
Diabetes due to growing intolerance for insulin in the body.
Breathing issues such as asthma or sleep apnea.
Liver disorders, gastro-esophageal reflux, gallstones, etc.
Social and psychological developmental problems.
Excessive weight of the body also has an adverse effect on the health of the bones, muscles and the joints. Bones develop in strength and in size and excessive weight can damage the process of bone development adversely. Growth plates, which are responsible for regulating the length and shape of the bones, are affected by childhood obesity. This can often lead to broken bones, or other serious conditions.
These are the main forms of disorders and complications that arise in the knee, foot or ankle of a child suffering from childhood obesity:
Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis
Also known as SCFE, this is an orthopedic condition usually seen affecting the hips in an adolescent person. This is caused when the weakness in the growth plates results in the femoral head slipping back in comparison to the femur (thigh bone). This then causes severe pain in the knee or the hip along with an infrequent limp or even unable to put weight on the affected side’s leg.
This is a rare condition and is seen developing when the child’s body is experiencing spurts of growth, especially during puberty. Hormonal imbalance combined with obesity can affect the development of the growth plate in the major bones of the body.
Blount’s Disease
This is the severe bowing of the leg outwards at the knee. This is mostly the result of hormonal changes, excessive weight (obesity) and the increased pressure on the growth plates leading to abnormal growth and the bones seeming deformed.
Fractures and Other Complications
Children with obesity are more likely to develop other serious orthopedic conditions, such as weakened bones that are vulnerable to a fracture. Also, the child may suffer from further complications which tend to make treatment difficult in such cases.
Flat Feet
Children with obesity are also more likely to have painful flat feet which tend to make them get tired faster and also make it feel like an effort to walk for a considerable distance.
Impaired Movement
Children with obesity also suffer from coordination problems, also known as developmental coordination disorder (DCD), which is signified by:
Constant clumsiness
Gross motor coordination problem
Problems with fine motor skills
How can Childhood Obesity and its complications be prevented?
In some cases of childhood obesity, when the BMI is 40 or more, then the doctor will usually recommend a bariatric (weight loss) surgery to decrease weight and avoid further damage to the musculoskeletal structure of the body as well as other similar complications.
In many cases, a diet rich in calcium and other vital nutrients, combined with sufficient physical activity, can also help fight childhood obesity.