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How To Prevent Obesity In Early Childhood

Fat toddlers may be deemed as chubby and cute to their parents and family when they are young, but definitely this will turn into a society issue if this continues. In the USA, child obesity rate is increasing at its alarming rate; it had become one of the most critical national problems for the society where more than 70% of their young generations are found to be obese.

Child obesity brings a myriad of health risks, social problems, low esteem, and psychological depressions which shouldn’t be under-estimate with. Obesity happens when the body can’t expend the amount of energy which it had taken in, due to an excessive amount of high fat and high carbohydrates food are consumed. Food is one of the major culprits which lead to child obesity.

Studies have found that obesity in early childhood may be due to genetic link and hereditary factors as well. In this case, the issue gets more complicated as the solution to deal with this inherited obesity will not be as simple as simple dieting or exercise alone. Obesity pose critical threats to our health as it expose one to serious heart disease, strokes, high blood pressures, diabetes, depression, and hyperlipidaemia.

What can we do to prevent obesity in early childhood?

First of all, parents should pay appropriate attention on their young kids diets. Healthy eating habits should be implanted right from infancy with the positive influence of their parents or care-takers. Healthy and proper eating habits are very important as it will influence the young children’s health condition for his entire life span.

Schools and kindergartens should promote healthy eating campaigns to emphasize the importance of getting the rightful amount of fiber, protein and calcium for young kids whose body and mental are under rapid development.

Government should enforce the regulation on all manufactured food items to carry their content label on the outside of the packaging, citing the correct amount of fats, energy, carbohydrates etc in the food content itself, no matter if there are locally produced or are imported. This enforcement will benefit the consumers as every one of us needs to know what we have actually gained and benefited, from the food which we used to consume daily.

Media has strong influence and effect over the information which it communicated to the public. Media hold the key responsibility to convey the right message to the society by instilling necessary consciousness and knowledge to the society on the importance of nutrition for early childhood development as well as the problems and risks which obesity will bring should corrective actions have not being provided as early as they should.

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How To Assure Clean and Healthy Environment For Young Children

One of the key factors which necessitate the success of high quality learning programs for early childhood is the available of ‘clean and healthy environment’ serves as the learning platform for these youngsters of the next generation. Clean environment makes people happy, help enhance productivity as people work more efficiently under clean and tidy environments.

Emphasize of environmental cleanliness starts from the early learning centers and kindergartens where young children are spending approximately eight hours daily. These facilities ought to prioritize on the overall cleanliness of their environment, inclusive of both the internal as well as the external, such as the garden, hall, classrooms, toilets, kitchen, dining area, play-ground, music room etc. All these different areas of the early learning centers need to be maintained with good hygiene at all time. Floors toilets and dining area need to be washed and sterilized periodically to keep them clean from bacteria and viruses.

Next are the homes where they lived in. Every corner of the house needs to be tidy and clean. The drinking water need to be cooked and sterilized before drinking and it is also essential to have good clean air ventilation in the house as it is crucial for young children especially those suffering from asthma or repository infections to avoid living in stuffy and unclean places.

A clean, tidy, safe and harmony environment made up the best ‘ingredients’ for a healthy growing place for young kids to grow and develop properly and healthily while poor air and water quality will negatively impact the health and general well being of the society, endangering lives with diseases and infection.

A clean environment is essential for young children, especially for those below ten, as they are more vulnerable against diseases and virus because of weaker immune system as compared to adults. Multiple Scientific studies have cited that unhealthy environment factors have contributed to most of these common illness and symptoms which are found in young children today, such as asthma, development disabilities such as hearing and visual disabilities, growth of cancer, birth defects, allergies and respiratory infections.

A safe environment refers to an environment which is not threatened by harmful pollution such as chemicals, fertilizers, toxins, drugs, vehicles exhausted carbon gas which expose us to various kind of disease in this modern society today.

Environment which is clean, safe and ecological friendly will produce healthier new generations with well developed physical body and mind, and proceed to perform excellent in their future contributions to the society and to the world, with many more new innovations to be appearing with outstanding quality, economical and user-friendly to the human kind for any of these Industries, be it in Sports, Science, Education, Family, Fashion, Automobile, Textile, Timber, Housing, Medical, Insurance, Machinery, Agriculture, Computer Software and Gadgets, Transportation and Communication and many more.

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Child Dental Health Care And Prevention

In recent years, in many well developed as well as developing countries, increased attentions have been focused on child dental health care and prevention. A series of dental health initiatives, campaigns and services have been initiated by the Local Authority with the key objective as to ensure many infants and young children are granted with the best opportunities they could get for their dental health and well being from young.

Apart from the local authorities, parents should be holding the responsibilities of ensuring their young kids are trained on how to brush their teeth effectively from young age because they are the one closest to their kids when they are small. One of the most common causes of early tooth decay is Early Childhood Cavities (ECC).

ECC has been cited as one of the potential risk leading to bad teeth decay during the child development. ECC is caused by the high level of sugar and carbohydrates in the child’s diet, and allowing a child to fall asleep with the bottle that contains any milk or sweet beverages will exaggerate the growth of oral bacteria and resulted in early teeth cavity and gum diseases.

There are many ways to prevent teeth decay and sustain oral health if only more attentions are paid on these area. Some of these useful tips are listed below:

  • After every feeding, the inner mouth of your baby or toddler should be cleaned using a clean, warm cloth.
  • When the kids reached age two, after every meal, teach him to brush his teeth so that no food remaining are stuck anywhere in the mouth.
  • Change the used pacifier and bottle every month to ensure they are always clean and fungal less.
  • Encourage your child to discontinue the use of pacifier and bottle as early as age two to avoid possible ECC and oral disease which have victimized a lot of young innocent children every year.
  • Expose your children with the early use of fluoride in their daily brushing. It has been tested and recommended for its effectiveness in teeth strengthening and protection against cavity.
  • Prevent your children from taking too much sweets and chocolate, or sweet beverages as these are the ‘super agent’ to teeth decay which helps to expedite the progress of decaying among many young children today.
  • The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry had recommended parents to bring their children for their first dental visit around the age of 6 months, where their first tooth started to appear. Thereafter periodic dental visits every 3-6 months are to be carried out consistently to get the right proper care and attention on these young teeth. The objective is to encourage early dental care and treatments among young children for good dental hygiene.

At the same time, local authorities also need to play their parts in enforcing the importance of child dental health care as such:

1. Increasing dental care access is available to those especially from low income families and for rural communities where dental services are hard to obtain. This includes giving necessary dental insurance and treatments to those who are at higher risk of being infected by dental virus or diseases by providing free dental check-ups and treatments consistently to these groups of people.

2. Largely publicized the consequences of bad oral diseases which will jeopardize our health and general well-being. In extreme circumstances, they might even risk our health because dental illness might lead to many other illnesses which may be fatal if it has not being detected in the early stage.

3. Public and private institutions are found to contribute to the society by providing dental subsidies especially to those from medium and low income families. This is a way to encourage this population to seek for early professional dental treatment whenever they have any oral issues before it is too late.

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4 Key Nutrients For Healthy And Brilliant Early Childhood Development

As a parent, I am sure you will agree with me that all parents want their children to grow up to be healthy as well as developed into confident and well-rounded individuals, right?

Right! In order to make sure your child brain development and physical development are fueled with its essential nutrition and energy, a well balanced diet should be introduced to your young ones since early age.

Parents should pay close attention on the kids diets and eating habits as food are where they get their nutrients from. According to studies by the researchers at Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegenerative Research at the University of Massachusetts, early nutritional intervention and introduction into kids diets, are extremely important for early childhood development.

Here are the optimum lists of food which should be included in the diet for all children above 2 years old, who needs these crucially for their daily activities and development.

Calcium
Calcium is one of the key nutrients which is essential for young children especially those within the age range of 2-5, where their body needs all the necessary calcium for healthy strong bone and teeth development, as well as for healthy muscle development and functioning.

Daily calcium needs in accordance to children age are:

From 2-3 years old – 500 milligrams
From 4-5 years old – 800 mailgrams

It is also wise to introduce calcium rich drinks and snacks such as yogurts, milk, hard cheese as part of their diets to remedy the risk of calcium deficiency which might lead to thinning of osteoporosis later.

Protein
This is the necessary ‘fuel’ for the development of our body tissues. Protein contain amino acids which is responsible for building new cells and tissues, enzymes and human hormones. Protein can largely be found in eggs, fish, meat, milk and chicken. The requirement for protein is highest in infants, and remains high from then onwards till before they reach adolescent.

Iron
Iron is an important ingredient for normal brain development and function, it helps to distribute oxygen to our body cells for healthy development and growth. With iron deficiency, one may suffer from anemia, which may lead to weakness and lack in the ability to concentrate on your youngsters. Help to supplement dark meat, spinach, fortified breads, and grains into their diets to avoid iron deficiency for their substantial growth.

Docosahexaenic Acid (DHA)
DHA constituent 30% of the fatty acids in the brain, which is essential for the development of healthy brain and nervous system as well as for the retina of the eyes. Great memory, sharp visual, creativity, brightness are all closely associated with the supply amount of DHA in our body. The richest sources of DHA are red meats, fatty fish, animal organs and salmon fish.

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