{"id":6528,"date":"2019-10-02T02:56:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T02:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/?p=6528"},"modified":"2019-10-02T02:56:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T02:56:58","slug":"a-wake-up-call-childhood-obesity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/archives\/6528","title":{"rendered":"A wake-up call: Childhood Obesity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An article\nto a parents\u2019 magazine on children obesity, with reasons and suggestions\noffered<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\nrecently found that 1 in 5 children is overweight\u2014and Hong Kong kids are not\nimmune to the global epidemic of obesity. Not only does obesity impose menace\nand potential risks to our children\u2019s health, but it will also adversely affect\ntheir self-esteem. Therefore, fighting children weight wars is an uphill\nbattle, we, the parents should never wave the white flag. In order to figure\nout comprehensive solutions, we should first delve into the phenomenon. What\nleads to childhood obesity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Childhood\nobesity stems from the \u2018pull and push\u2019 factors. It\u2019s easy to\nunderstand\u2014children eat too much calorie-rich food (input) while doing too\nlittle exercise (output).  As a result,\nour kids become fat, chubby or even obese. Everyone knows that, but what are\nthe underlying reasons?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfirst to blame is the catering sector i.e. all sorts of fast food and take-away\nshops. They promote vigorously the fast food trend\u2014oily, salty and saturated\nwith calories but no nutrients through overwhelming advertisements. Our\nimpressionable children, and parents sometimes, are lured to consume the \u2018yummy-yet-not-wholesome\nfood\u2019, eventually falling victims to being overweight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsocial atmosphere accounts for the kids\u2019 obesity issue as well. Let\u2019s conduct a\nsimple survey here. How many extra-curricular activities have you signed up for\nyour little darlings? Have you spared some time to let them monkey around? It\nis not our fault, but the society as a whole. Hong Kong society is severely\nill, with the norm to force every child to be the brightest and promote the\n\u2018winning at the starting line\u2019 concept. Thus, many parents arrange a myriad of\nactivities for their children, posing tremendous workload on them.\nConsequently, they bear the brunt of lacking time to work out or simply being\ntoo idle to do any sports since they are already caught in unrelenting load and\nstress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nparents, decoding the root causes of childhood obesity is not alone the major\nconcern, what we are longing to know more are the solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still\nremember the pull-push factors mentioned before? Let\u2019s start from the pull\nside, the diet. Parents should indeed cook for children instead of dining out.\nLunchboxes are usually greasy, calorie-dense, high in sodium and containing\nexcessive meat and inadequate vegetables. It is unhealthy and is even detrimental\nto health. Other than home cooking, yummy snacks like berries, yogurt and so on\ncan be offered to our children as healthy snacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving to the aspect of exercise, there\u2019s even more we can do. Simply relax their tight schedules a bit and set three times a week for them to hang around on a playground nearby, better 1.5 hour each time, as recommended by WHO.\u00a0 This can already help a lot. If you aren\u2019t available of taking them out, intensive classes for physical training or activities like swimming can be arranged. Sports are not barriers to, but catalysts for more exceptional academic achievements in fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children\nbeing obese is a perilous alarm, but being underweight does no good at\nmeantime. We should teach our kids not to attach value to their weight and\navoid dieting at such a young age. Only through our appropriate guidance can\nour children grow up healthily\u2014let\u2019s protect our sweethearts from obesity\u2019s\nevil claws!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lam Nga Ting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6B 2019-20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An articlto a parents\u2019 magazine on children obesity, with reasons and suggestionoffere<\/strong><\/p>

It\u2019recently found that 1 in 5 children is overweight\u2014and Hong Kong kids are noimmune to the global epidemic of obesity. Not only does obesity impose menacand potential risks to our children\u2019s health, but it w.........<\/p>Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":8474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","language-en","classlevel-others","schoolyear-37"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6528"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6532,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6528\/revisions\/6532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}