Puppy fat poses diabetes risk in kids

New Delhi : If pizzas, burgers and ice creams figure in your child's daily diet, then there is reason to worry.

A study on a sample group of school children by Delhi's Indraprastha Apollo Hospital found 23 per cent of kids obese.

The study conducted in a sample size of 1,000 students between seven to eleven years of age taken from public schools also found 17 per cent of these children hypertensive and prone to diabetes and cardiac problems.

Says Dr R N Srivastava, "There are other problems like joint problems, problems with locomotion. These don't happen immediately but come later with age."

In fact an earlier study done on school children at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) between 2002 and 2004 found a rise in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, which till now was considered a disease of the 40 plus age group.

Says Dr Anoop Misra, "The problem is just increasing rapidly over a period of time - especially over the last five years. Now it's reaching a proportion that should concern all of us as well as the policy makers."

Doctors blame the growing sedentary lifestyle among children as a main cause of concern as also their dietary pattern which includes pre-packaged fatty foods.

Experts advice that if adults themselves don't give up on fast-food and quick fix meals, then there is only a slim chance that children may follow a healthy nutritive diet pattern.

Also motivating children to go out and play or exercise will have no impact if parents themselves are couch potatoes.

"The child and his environment has to be altered. Any person who is surrounding him, be it a teacher, parent or his sibling have to made aware about what is healthy for the child," says Dr Anoop Misra

It's not just the child's health that obesity effects, it can also effect the child's behaviour. Children are becoming more conscious of their body image and obesity might make a child withdraw from the outside world.

Vibha Sachdeva

Source: CNN-IBN