With financial growth, sophistication, quality education and modern lifestyles our children are becoming the worse for it. They have been left holding the short end of the stick.
A worrying report released yesterday shows an increasing number of children in urban, affluent families are getting exposed to obesity and subsequent lifestyle diseases. This is ironical in a country where child labour is still a problem in many areas.
The study shows 23.6 per cent of children aged 5 to 17 are overweight compared to only 4.2 per cent in the rural areas. Another 11 per cent are underweight in urban areas against some 3.7 per cent in Nairobi.
Conducted by the Ministry of Health and Kenyatta University, the survey gives a glimpse into majority of Kenyans lifestyles.
World Health Organisation recommends an hour of vigorous to moderate physical activity for children. However, this seems a tall order especially in due to the competitive examinations culture. It has emerged that while the Ministry of Education has allocated 35 minutes for Physical Education (PE) three times in a week, most schools have taken up this period for teaching examinable subjects.
This is attributed to overemphasis on passing national examinations as opposed to holistic development of school-going children.
The malady, here this, is more prominent in parents gaining more education and financial independence. The survey says the more a families become well off, the more their children are exposed to obesity. This is largely because children in such homes rarely perform household chores and neither are they forced to walk to school or other places.
Meanwhile their counterparts from upcountry walk kilometres to school and home. They engage in physically exerting chores like fetching water, firewood, gardening and tending livestock. Urban youth are cozy in their homes watching TV, playing computer games or listening to music.
While this requires little physical effort, they then gobble up fatty foods like chips and fried chicken.
In urban areas, there is also another defining difference between public and private schools. While students in public schools engage in less ‘prestigious’ and physical games like football and netball, their counterparts in private entities are kept busy in ‘softer’ games like play stations. This has been found detrimental to children’s physical growth and life span.
When it comes to gender, girls are more predisposed to obesity than boys. And it all starts from societal expectations where girls are taught to be more calm, modest even as boys are allowed to run, jump and roam free.
And society’s glorification of a ‘rounder’ figure in women is not helping the girl’s case either. While trying to maintain their body shape, several young women hurt themselves healthwise by, for instance, starving themselves or eating more. This undue pressure must be discouraged, moreso on the young impressionable minds.
While it is foolhardy to police a people’s lifestyle, parents and guardians must take charge of their children’s physical growth. We owe them a guide to healthy living. It would be unfortunate to throw caution to the wind as they laze around the house, only to develop complications related to obesity.
Besides, allocating household chores like cleaning the house, washing utensils, trimming grass around the compound have been found to help instill responsibility in the youth. ‘Spoiling children’ with too much luxury has proven disastrous, where such youth grow up into indolent adults. Such youth may be highly educated and from well-to-do families, but they tend to make poor life decisions when left on their own.
Still, obesity comes with many well-documented health risks. It precipitates heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer. Their mobility, at an age where they should be swift, can also be hugely curtailed. Obese children are also often the butt of demeaning jokes in school, which greatly affects their confidence and interaction skills.
In today’s fast-paced world, health fitness is not only an asset, but also could mean life or death. Over to you parents, get your children jumping, running, kicking and breaking barriers!
