Handling Obesity In Children Can Be Started By Changing Eating Patterns

Illustration (Keira Burton/Pexels)

JAKARTA - Changing diet is the first step in dealing with children who are obese, before asking them to exercise according to age, according to the Head of the Central Board of the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI Dr Piprim Basarah Yanuarso, SpA(K).

"Because this diet is much bigger than the pattern of movement. If a child is obese, it is difficult if he is immediately told to exercise heavily. Just walk and weigh him," he said, as reported by ANTARA.

For diet, parents can stop giving children low nutritional foods such as junk food and then replacing them with natural food or real food. Piprim said that children should be satisfied with animal protein sources, for example, rice with lots of side dishes in the form of eggs, fish or chicken.

This increased amount of protein is to prevent children from eating fast-absorption carbohydrates, for example from low-nutrient snacks.

"Children continue to be hungry and mostly calories because the choice of the type of food is wrong (eating junk food), too often given foods with a high glycemic index or high in carbohydrates, sugar and flour," he said.

As a result, children's blood sugar rises quickly and then drops quickly. When the blood sugar rises like a rollerster and then divess, the child will feel hungry again and then asks for food again.

Piprim admits that efforts to break the diet of children who like to eat junk food and sweet drinks are not easy and this requires parental support.

"Maybe the sweet drink is replaced with a non-calorie sweetener like stevia, which is very sweet but has no calories, it can be an alternative sweetener for obese children. Even children who don't have obes may also use stevia," he suggested.

On that occasion, the Head of the Endocrinology Coordination Unit of the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) Dr Muhammad Faizi, SpA(K) advised parents to prevent their children from getting obese as early as possible. Even if the child is already obese, he continued, then modifying the child's diet and lifestyle can be done so that it can reduce the impact of obesity.

The criteria for obese children can be measured through a growth curve that takes into account the increase in height. This is different from adults who hold one of them to the value of the body mass index (IMT).