One of the biggest health issues our society faces is obesity.
It may seem like such a small thing, and you may think that it just means someone is a little bit overweight, but the consequences of being obese can be disastrous.
Obese is classified as when someone has 20% extra body fat on them whish is putting them in danger of health problems.
It isn’t just adults that can be classified as obese, but children as well.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 1 in 4 children are overweight or obese.
Earlier this month the Courier Mail found that there are an alarming number of children and teenagers so overweight they have a high chance of getting heart disease.
Scarily, though, this article also mentions that around 30% of parents who have obese children believe their child to be of a healthy size.
The Consequences of obesity:
- Increased risk of heart disease
- Prevalence of getting Type 2 diabetes
- Some cancers
- Muscular- skeletal problems
- Sleep apnoea
- Increased breathlessness
- Tiredness
- High blood pressure
- Heat intolerance
- Particularly for children, if they remain obese through childhood then they have trouble maintaining a healthy body weight when older
- And many others.
How to combat obesity:
Eating healthy
This may seem like a no brainer, but it can be harder than you think.
If someone is used to constantly pulling into a McDonald’s drive thru then it can be hard to break the habit they have created.
However planning meals and dietary plans can help this problem.
The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating is particularly useful as it helps to show which products belong to which food groups and what groups you should have more or less of.
Regular exercise
It is recommended that people get between 30-60 minutes of exercise a day.
These could be either:
- Walking
- Jogging
- Swimming
- Going to the gym
- Cycling
- Joining a sport (netball, football, tennis etc.)
There are many programs for children out there as well to help them with regularly exercising, such as Energy Krazed.
Although you will need to push yourself at times, this will be worth it in the end when you notice a dramatic improvement to your health.
Changing your mindset
Things won’t change all at once, it will take time.
Like the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” goes, progress may take a while but if you persist with it then you will reach your goal in the end.
cassidymac 