The obesity issue is very complex and cannot be tackled just by avoiding junk food. As a mother and healthcare expert, I know for a fact that children need continuous physical activity and certain types of foods to maintain a good metabolic rate.
Metabolic rate means the manner and rate at which our body burns off calories. While a lazy lifestyle converts calories into body fat, an active lifestyle converts the same fat into energy.
This is why a physically active child may burn off 2,000 calories without doing anything in a day, while an inactive child would burn off half the amount.
Children should be involved in a lot of physical activities. However, parents face many dilemmas, such as rising costs of sport activities as well as busy study schedules. Most importantly, they face a problem finding a safe place for their children to play, which is why many parents feel relieved when their wards are on their playstations in the safety of their homes.
Sports is good
When my sons were young they were very interested in playing tennis. I put them under rigorous coaching, which included warm up jogging for several kilometers, skipping and playing the game itself. By the time they arrived home they would be so tired that they would have no energy left to do homework. As a result their academic performance took a slight dip.
Many well-wishers insisted that I was ruining my children's future, but I persevered and let them play with other costs attached — dusty clothes, worn out shoes, picking and dropping them to the tennis academy, coaching fees and more.
Today, I do not regret my decision when I see youngsters with pot-bellies and Type 2 diabetes — a disease that was more popularly known as 'Adult Onset' diabetes.
It is no longer called so, since younger people are being diagnosed with it too, caused mainly due to a lazy lifestyle.
Body cells become lazy and literally shut the doors for insulin to bring the sugar in. Without sugar, the cells cannot produce Adenosine triphospate (ATP) or energy. The result — cells are deprived of energy, leading to more hunger. The unused sugar and insulin roam around in the blood thereby ruining the body.
Children today need the excitement that comes with playing outdoor games, faces flushed with happiness, clothes dirty with dust, wind in their hair, and bruised knees and elbows.
This would help their Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), and spirits to fly high, and allow them to digest not just home-cooked food but an occasional junk meal, too. Parents — any takers?
— The writer is a healthcare expert and Gulf News Readers Club member from Dubai.
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