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Saving Kids From Obesity Starts at Home

June 28, 2007

Several years ago, the word “malnutrition” usually brings about images of poor African children, bone-thin with protruding bellies, weak with hunger as they lie wrapped in their mothers’ arms, equally malnourished, or lying listlessly on the desert sand amidst vultures, awaiting death to overcome them.  However, recent events caused us to conjure images of malnutrition as big, bulky humans with the same protruding bellies, not because of ascites, but because of excess adipose tissues.  These humans suffer not from hunger of food but rather from not understanding the disaster that is obesity, the other half of malnutrition that has reared its ugly head in the recent years.  Now, suddenly, both hunger and overabundance of food oppress us.

Like those stricken with hunger, children it seems are also susceptible to this rising epidemic.  But whereas the cause of world hunger is more political and economic in nature, obesity is more of a personal issue.

A typical case was that of a mother, who I saw in my clinic, with hypercholesterolemia and hypertension.  I advised her that even with medications, she has to modify her eating habits, so as to keep off the excess weight and keep her blood cholesterol and blood pressure at normal levels.

And her horrified response was: “But how do you expect me to do that?  Do I have to cook separate meals for myself.  The family simply can’t afford it!”

After further discussion, I found out that what her family “couldn’t afford” wasn’t monetary in nature.  It was the idea of switching the entire family to a different, “abnormal” diet that repelled her.

“My kids, all they want to eat are fried foods: fried chicken, fried fish, french fries, burgers, and chips.  I don’t know what to do.  So that’s why I also eat what they eat.  And thus, the high cholesterol,”  she explained.

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Written by Prudence · Filed Under Health, Medicine, Personal 

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