Obesity

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(vii)   Junk Food Marketing – There is a great concern about the eating habits of children. If, in early childhood, they get great satisfaction and become accustomed to tantalising taste of unhealthful, processed, refined, fast junk foods – those habits may persist throughout their lives as their taste buds would have lost interest in natural healthful foods. This phenomena is called “programming” or “brain washing”, intelligently pre-determined by seductive, compelling, slick multi-crore advertising by the food corporates. Fast food chains like Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wimpys, Domino’s have hit the nail on the head by targeting children as their prime consumers by offering free venues and gifts for their birthday parties. “Pester power” marketing techniques used by the food industry to target children for the promotion of unhealthy foods deliberately undermines parental control over children’s nutrition. Children are bombarded with marketing messages on TV channels like Nick, Cartoon Network, Pogo, MTV etc., most of them for foods high in saturated fat (mostly hydrogenated), sugar, salt and starch; the latter three being regarded as the three “white poisons”.

 Childhood Obesity Complications

68.     Being fat at a young age is gradually becoming an epidemic, especially in urban areas. There is a simplistic equation for obesity – eating too much and moving too little. Only 5% of obese children are overweight because of clinical reasons, the remaining 95% are caused by unhealthy excessive diets and inactivity. Complications due to childhood obesity are numerous and life long.

69.     Children who are fat at a younger age are prone to develop diabetes, heart disease (they can grow bigger left ventricles in their hearts), stroke, hypertension (BP), breathing problems, skin disorders like rashes etc. etc. They will usually develop orthopaedic problems such as weight stress in the joints of the lower limbs, tibial torsion, bowed legs and separation of the hip joint from the thigh bone. In 2004, death of a 3 year old child from heart attack failure directly attributed to obesity was reported in the press!

70.     The stigma that society attaches to obesity can cause children immediate and possibly, lasting harm. Overweight children and teens are commonly teased, bullied or ostracised by their peers, and sometimes treated differently by teachers and even parents. This can lead to low self-esteem, poor school performance, avoidance of physical activity and in the more serious cases to psychological disorders like sleeping disorder, anxiety, depression and even suicide in some cases.