Causes of Childhood Obesity – Eating Habits

The Wrong Foods Lead to Obesity

In order to live, we must eat. Somewhere in our history, we stopped eating to live and started living to eat. This obsession with food has led to not only obesity in adults,  but a rising obesity in children. Let’s examine the eating habits that can lead to obesity in children and the ways to change those habits.

Marketing & Advertising

Advertising makes companies millions of dollars a year. Why? People view the ads or see commercials on television and buy, buy, buy. Unfortunately, this is turning us into a nation of obese people.

On a daily basis, we see numerous advertisements extolling the virtues of some sort of tasty food that is not necessarily good for us. You can probably hum those snack food jingles without thinking.  This marketing and advertising has us spending millions of dollars on unhealthy food in restaurants, very unhealthy fast food, and all sorts of prepackaged meals and snacks. This has lead to poor eating habits for adults, children and families.

Food Choices

Children have access to all types of food. There are snack vending machines, soda machines, and fast food restaurant counters in in school cafeterias. At one time, kids took their lunches to school, but now most kids buy their lunch. It’s fast and easy, and they can eat virtually anything  they want.  The majority of food in malls is non-nutritious such as burgers, fries and soda.

But it’s not just about what we eat – in fact, it’s more about what we drink. According to various studies, drinking one soda per day increases the childhood obesity risk by sixty percent!  This bears repeating, – just one soda a day can increase a child’s risk of being obese by 60 percent!

Sodas are High Fructose Corn Syrup, sugar, and empty calories. A single serving of soda can pack a whopping 120 to 180 calories. And remember: that’s  PER SERVING (with most sodas being 20 ounces, they actually contain 2.5 servings). This adds up to about 300 calories — and 300 calories is almost an entire meal’s worth of calories with absolutely no nutritional value.

“Diet” sodas are full of empty calories, and they give a false sense of security, leaving people thinking they are consuming a healthy alternative. But diet drinks have been shown to cause weight gain because people falsely believe they can have a diet drink (or two) and then eat a donut because they saved those extra calories. But there are a lot of obese people walking around carrying diet drinks – why is that?

Snacking

Kids usually come home from school and are looking for a snack. They just naturally reach for whatever is available to snack on. While doing homework or watching TV, they mindlessly overeat, consuming a lot of calories in a short period of time. Maybe even skipping supper because they have filled up on high sugar snacks.  By then, the damage to our daily caloric intake is done.

Turning Eating Habits Around

Changing eating habits requires changing how you look at food. To save your children from the dangers of obesity, don’t go for convenience; make time to eat the right foods. Purchase and prepare healthy snacks. Cut up an apple to give it to them with a  little peanut butter. Have bananas onhand for a quick snack. Have healthy snacks available for those times when we all naturally snack.

Remove sodas that are loaded with High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Educate yourself on what the foods you purchase really contain. Learn to read the nutrition labels. Get rid of high sugar content foods. A high sugar diet is a high fat diet and the main cause of obesity in children. It is too easy to reach for quick, convenient snacks, and the temptation is everywhere — we are bombarded with unhealthy foods both at home and away. Make your home a healthy atmosphere by removing unhealthy foods from your pantry. Good health and the fight against obesity in children begins in the home.

To learn more about how to deal with childhood obesity, check out this excellent book by Susan Okie. To order the book, click on this image.

What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment or sound off about the epidemic.