Childhood Obesity: An Epidemic in Waiting?

Progress of a country comes at a price. With the booming economy, Indians have now more food stuff to eat. Most of the time what we eat and give our children to eat is not healthy. Consequently, a lot more Indian children are becoming overweight like their western counterparts. Approximately 22 million children, under fi ve years of age, are overweight across the world. The worst part is that we do not know for sure what proportion of Indian children are overweight. Different studies in India have shown a wide range of prevalence of childhood obesity. Recent studies have proved beyond doubt that this impending epidemic is not only restricted to the elite children in our country, but has crossed the socioeconomic divide and childhood obesity is on the rise even among the less privileged ones. Recent fi ndings have shown that the propensity to become obese is evident as early as someone is in the uterus. Obesity is the root cause of many chronic diseases. The best way to tackle the obesity epidemic is to lessen its burden in children. The earlier we intervene in a person’s life; the better will be the results, not only for the individual, but for the country as well. Population-based prevention strategies are the best to tackle this epidemic. It seeks to change the social norm by encouraging an increase in healthy behaviour and a reduction in health risk. They involve shifting the responsibility of tackling health risks from the individual to governments and health ministries.