Health Tips

Let Kids Play Outdoors To Fight Obesity

Health Experts Advice Parents

Parents are advised to allow their children plenty of time to play and participate in active outdoor games to prevent and fight obesity.

Sanirose Orbeta of the Philippine Association for the Study of Overweight and Obesity and a health expert, is encouraging parents to let their children sweat it out in the playground.

Orbeta said, one reason why kids in grade school and secondary levels are obese is that they lack physical activities that force them to flex their muscles regularly.

She laments that most kids now live in sedentary lifestyles especially at home and even at schools, that some kids rely on their "yaya" to do even the most simple of works.

"They have become indolent," she stressed.

Orbeta suggested that schools to encourage more physical education programs to battle overweight problems among the students. They should emphasize it in their curriculum, she stressed.

Orbeta also said that even people living in the poverty level are obese. They have spent most of their time watching television and sitting around doing nothing. They must be encouraged to eat healthy yet affordable vegetables, she recommended.

Our country is slowly becoming obese in terms of weight and population, she pointed out.

Meantime, Dr. Celeste Tanchoco of the Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) said that parents who are overweight are most likely to have overweight kids, that kids and children are apt to adapt the eating habits of their parents and that if the kids are overweight or obese, it is the parents who are to be blamed. They should be good and healthy examples for their children, said Dr. Tanchoco.

Both Orbeta and Tanchoco were in Iloilo City recently for the DOST-FNRI’s hydration symposium.

The event "Symposium on Hydration" encourages health professionals, barangay health workers, members of the academe and media to encourage healthy living in the community. (PNA) /MP