The number of obese school children, especially in primary education, has doubled in the last eight years, because of the unhealthy way of life of the children, according to a survey of the Public Health Institute (ISP) Bucharest, Children and Youth Hygiene Department. By age groups, the growth of obesity is more important among the children from primary education. Thus, if in 2001, in the fourth grade, the non-endocrine obesity was 1.6 per cent, in 2008 it rose to 3.6 per cent.
In the eighth grade, the prevalence of obesity was 1.7 per cent in 2001, and seven years later it increased to 3.4 per cent, while in the twelfth grade the weight of obesity rose from 1.4 per cent in 2001 to 2.8 per cent in 2008. The author of the survey says that one of the etiological factors of obesity is the unhealthy life style, materialized in modified meals hours, i.e. the children eat twice or even once a day. “Most of the obese children eat several snacks or fruit during the day, and seldom fruit. Thus, in the structure of the pattern of activity and rest there are numerous risk factors, the most important of them referring to the imbalanced eating regime, with increased use of hyper caloric food, reduced physical activity, sedentary life style, and insufficient sleep,” the author of the survey, reader Aurelia Cordeanu said, quoted by Mediafax.
The obesity in children and teenagers has a special impact on the state of health, both physical and psychic. Another important factor of the impact on health is the fact that the degree of obesity from childhood has an influence on the degree of obesity at a mature age, with all the negative phenomena and complications at the adult age.
The obese children have more chances to remain obese as teenagers than the children with a normal weight. Similarly, the more a child remains obese as he advances in age, the bigger are his chances to become an obese adult, ISP survey shows.
Teenage seems to be a particularly sensitive period for the appearance of obesity. Around 80 per cent of the obese teenagers become obese adults, but the risk for an obese child to become an obese adult is less obvious. The immediate consequences of obesity in childhood and teenage have a psycho-social character.
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