Tag Archive for 'infanzia'

To tackle chilhood obesity

Protecting children’s rights: why governments must be bold to tackle childhood obesity

Oliver T Mytton, Claire Fenton-Glynn, Emma Pawson Russell, M Viner Sally C Davies

“The UK Chief Medical Officer’s independent review of childhood obesity, Time to Solve Childhood Obesity, was published on Oct 10, 2019.

In England the prevalence of childhood obesity is too high; about 20% of children aged 10–11 years are obese(≥95th centile on the UK90 growth charts).

There is widespread public support for action with three “chapters” of an ambitious plan outlined by the UK Government.

Now we need a focus on implementing solutions, and the independent review calls for bold action to improve children’s health.
Today, the high prevalence of obesity in children is the canary in the coal mine, an early warning that things are wrong in the environment. Too few children have access to healthy, affordable food, and too few are sufficiently active for health. Additionally, many environmental factors contribute to child ill-health:
  • shops and many public places flooded with heavily promoted less-healthy food options;
  • advertising and sponsorship that place less-healthy foods centre stage in young minds;
  • urban streets dominated by traffic, with too few opportunities to walk to school, to ride a bicycle, or simply to play and explore.
These issues affect all our children. However, not all children are affected equally. Children who grow up in deprived neighbourhoods are disproportionately affected.”

Easy guidelines for an active life style among young people

Chilhood has moved indoors

In the last 20 years, childhood has moved indoors. Usually in US, boys or girls spend as few as 30 minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day, and more than seven hours each day in front of an electronic screen.

This change had a deep impact on the children wellbeing: increased obesity rates and pediatric prescriptions for antidepressants. More and more children are out of shape and stressed out, because they’re missing something essential to their health and development, that is to live in the natural world. It’s suggested to spend at least one hour a day outside in unstructured activities.

 

Michelle Obama’s program to reduce the childhood obesity

The new step of the Michelle Obama campaign against childhood obesity, “Let’s move” continues  with  the collaboration of 5 media companies and a social media website to find nutritious recipes.

The companies involved are Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines, Meredith Corp., the Food Network and Time Inc. and have identified more than 3,000 recipes that meet federal nutrition guidelines for how much fruit, vegetables, protein and grains should be on a person’s plate at each meal. The companies are promoting these recipes on their most popular cooking websites, and many of them have been posted on a new page on the social networking site Pinterest.