March 10th, 2008
Defeat Childhood Obesity
In the last few years childhood obesity has shown to be an issue of critical and increasing importance. A little boy is considered obese if he exceeds his ideal weight by 25%; the threshold is set at 30% for little girls. A child’s ideal weight can be easily calculated on the base of BMI (body massive index).
Childhood obesity is frequently a consequence of an unbalanced nutrition, more and more based on fat and caloric food, lacking in proteins and nutritive value. Children often eat casually and prefer snacks and soft drinks. Parents tend to buy ready-to-eat products rather than cook themselves with natural ingredients. Purchase decisions in our consumer society are influenced by marketing and misleading advertising, which affect nutrition and deploy its biggest effects on youth.