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Cardio Health of Obese Children


Children do not generally get blood tests to check their lipid profiles but it turns out that they are not immune to the dangers of high cholesterol.

Research shows that obese children and teenagers are showing problems of cardiovascular problems. The obese children as compared to the normal weight children had higher total cholesterol, higher triglycerides, lower HDL, higher LDL, higher triglycerides, higher total cholesterol, lower HDL In addition they the obese kids also had higher blood pressure, higher fasting glucose and higher fasting insulin readings.

It isn’t easy if you have an obese child. Here are some tips — an excerpt from “What’s for Lunch?”

“Is my child too heavy?

It’s good to be concerned about your child’s weight. Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated from a child’s weight and height. There are growth charts that the Indian Council of Medical Research has developed that plot the average weights for children by age and gender,  and you can determine in which percentile your child fits. Your pediatrician should be plotting your child’s growth and can determine if your child is the correct weight for his or her age.

The percentile indicates the relative position of the child’s BMI number among children of the same sex and age. The Indian growth charts however take the average of all of Indian children and may be inaccurate for urban middle class children.

If your child is overweight, do not be distraught and love and accept your child no matter what! Accept your child at any weight, size, or shape. Growth is unpredictable at best during childhood. It comes in spurts, sometimes unexpectedly. A child who was always skinny can suddenly inflate in size while his height catches up with his  weight. There’s a lot of pressure in our society to be slim but do not teach your child that it is important to be thin and give his/her a bad body image. Do not put your child on a calorie restrictive diet, this won’t be helpful and may even cause emotional and physical damage.

Instead, help your child maintain his weight until his height catches up and teach him/her that health is more important than body weight. Teach good healthy eating habits and encourage your child to be active. Exercise with your child, set an example.

If your child is obese(BMI of over 30) some other interventions may be needed. Make them read about the dangers of obesity, take them to a dietician. Let them talk to the dietician alone so they are comfortable and open about their eating habits. Sometimes kids turn to food when there is some other issue is happening in their life. Our Indian school system puts quite a bit of stress on the child and at times children, like us, eat when they are stressed.

Keep being positive.”

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