Childhood obesity-who or which should we really blame for it? A recent study just discovered what might be the reason for overweight children.
According to BBC, around one in ten UK children are obese. Health organizations and medical experts have been trying to understand the reason behind these kids gaining and gaining weight. As a matter of fact, there were 42 million infants and young children all over the world who were overweight or obese in 2013. As estimated by the World Health Organization, if this current trend continues, the number of overweight children will increase to 70 million by 2025.
Science says that genes are not the only key player for obesity. There are socio-demographic and environmental elements that are contributing to this unpleasant news.
The recent study, published in Preventive Medicine, found that both poverty and parenting style are essential factors of childhood health. Lead author and assistant professor in Concordia's Department of Mathematics and Statistics Lisa Kakinami, relates that lower socio-economic status, residing in neighbourhoods that are not walkable and less accessible to fresh fruits and healthy vegetables can increase the risk of being overweight.
Kakinami and her team examined information and data from a national survey of Canadian youth from 1994-2008. 37, 577 children were examined and compared to one another in terms of socio-demographic and socio-economic status, family and community characteristics and height and weight.
Results showed that 35 percent of the children had authoritarian parents and household income had an effect for the younger children. Kids living in poverty had 20% greater compared with the risk among kids not living in poverty. Kakinami explained that authoritarian parenting may translate to parents not attending to the children's needs and cues of hunger and/or feeling bloated.
Charlie Coward, a healthy lifestyles officer, suggests in BBC walking and other informal activities like football and cycling for children to avoid obesity.
