Obesity in children is a huge public health concern on a national and international scale. In recent years, the prevalence of childhood obesity has increased. It is caused by an imbalance between calorie consumption and expenditure. Children are obese due to one or more genetic, behavioral, and environmental variables. Childhood obesity is associated with physical, psychological, and social health concerns.
Causes of obesity
Research has helped us understand the causes of obesity in a number of significant ways. Davison et alecological .’s model says that a child’s diet, level of physical activity, and sedentary behavior are all risk factors for obesity.
Most people agree that an increase in obesity is caused by an imbalance between how many calories a person takes in and how many calories they burn. A rise in a positive energy balance is closely linked to the way a person lives and what they eat. But, there is more and more evidence that states that a person’s genes play a big role in how likely they are to be overweight.
Some things, like age and gender, can lessen the effect of these risk factors. The parents’ parenting style and the way they live also play a role.
According to a recent study, a mother’s consumption of highly processed meals may increase her child’s risk of obesity.
Ultra-processed foods are very tasty, full of energy, easy to use, and can last a long time on the shelf. They are made from refined, cheap ingredients and a series of industrial processes. Ultra-processed foods have a lot of added ingredients, such as stabilizers, artificial flavors, and artificial colors, but they don’t have many if any, whole-food ingredients. Also, compared to less processed foods, ultra-processed foods tend to have more sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.
Everything from packaged snacks to carbonated beverages to sugary cereals is considered to be an example of ultra-processed food. These meals are not only associated with increased maternal and infant weight but may also contribute to the development of obesity in future generations.
Ultra-processed food consumption during pregnancy has been linked to an increased risk of obesity in children, regardless of the mother’s own weight or lifestyle choices that may affect the child’s risk of developing obesity later in life.
Research and study
Data from the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS I and II) and the Nurses Health Study II (NHS II) in the United States, which included information on 19,958 children born to 14,553 mothers (45% of whom were boys and aged 7 to 17 at study enrolment), were analyzed by the researchers.
Food intake and other characteristics were evaluated every two years for both mothers and children. Separately, 2,790 moms and 2,925 children with prepregnancy diet information were investigated. In this investigation, prepregnancy ultra-processed food intake did not affect child obesity risk. Since it’s an observational study, some of the risks may be attributed to unmeasured factors.
There are a number of additional potentially influential factors that have been shown to strongly connect with obesity in children. This includes factors such as the mother’s weight (measured using the body mass index, or BMI), her level of physical activity, her smoking habits, her living situation (whether she is with a partner or not), her partner’s level of education, her children’s consumption of highly processed foods, their level of physical activity, and the amount of time, they spend being sedentary.
All the researches indicate that ultra-processed food consumption by mothers during child rearing was linked to an elevated incidence of overweight or obesity in offspring, regardless of lifestyle risk factors. To confirm these findings and explain the biological mechanisms and environmental variables, more research is needed. These statistics support modifying dietary guidelines and developing programs to improve women’s nutrition for offspring health
What experts say
Processed snacks, according to Deepti Khatuja, Head Clinical Nutritionist, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon, are heavy in fats and carbohydrates but low in micronutrients. She added that this can induce fat even in the mother when consumed in excess.
According to a study, the mother’s weight increases during pregnancy, and if it rises above the usual range, it has an effect on the child and contributes to childhood obesity.
Deepti Khatuja stated that even though the findings of the study aren’t entirely conclusive, there are cases in which children pick up the habit of eating processed meals because they observe their mothers doing the same thing at home.
She also explained that women who consume a lot of packaged food, and their children are at a 20% higher risk of obesity than those who aren’t consuming ultra-processed food.
Read more about healthy foods here.
