Alarming Data Surveys
March 17, 2009
Studies carried across the USA have demonstrated the hard fact that fat kids are unhappier than their healthier or slimmer counterparts.
Researchers of the Pediatric department of the Post-Graduate Institute, Chandigarh, have pinpointed patients’ family histories, prolonged TV viewing and decreased outdoor activities as the common factors leading to obesity.
The Nutrition Foundation of India (NFI) carried out a survey of 4,300 children in Delhi recently. The survey focused on middle and upper middle class families.
The survey conducted by the College of Home Science, Mumbai, demonstrated that 65 per cent of the obese respondents were girls. It, therefore, showed that boys are less prone to obesity compared to girls.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, has pinpointed the ailments connected with obesity like heart ailments to be the primary cause for the rise in death rate among the youth. Following the study, the AIIMS study warned that such non-communicable heart diseases caused by obesity will shoot up the death rate among the youth from the then present nine per cent to 33 per cent.
The NFI survey found that 3.9 per cent of them fell within the category of ‘plain obese’ while as much as 26 per cent of those surveyed were overweight!
It also found out that about 30 per cent of the obese adults were as obese as the children. The NFI also pointed out that in India the specter of obesity is more among the middle class; and that too among the women than the men. Its studies found out that more than 50 per cent of the people interviewed were obese women while one-third of the respondents were males.
The scenario is equally dangerous everywhere. Another survey was conducted among 1500 students by the Subharti Medical College in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, recently. It showed that nine per cent of the respondents were obese.
SINGAPORE MODEL: THE BEST WAY TO TACKLE KIDS OBESITY
Singapore averted a major economic disaster through an innovative strategy. In Obesity among the school kids shot up from two per cent in the late 70′s to 17 per cent by 1992.
This prodded the health promotion board to go in for a major campaign. The schools were made the target points with the teachers transformed into the role of a focal agent.
The teachers were first trained.
Three strategies were focused upon: The teachers were promote and change the lifestyles of the children by making exercise a daily habit with them; to impart healthier eating habits to the school children; and to modify the menu of the school canteens.
This brought about a sea-change what with obesity falling below 10 per cent by 1998.
