Did you know that even though India is a still a developing nation that is struggling with poverty, malnutrition, and disease, it has the second highest number of obese children in the world? Now if that isn't alarming I don't know what is. Data released by the World Obesity Federation, a community of organizations dedicated to solving the problem of obesity, shows that the percentage of Indian adults living with obesity is set to jump to around 5% by 2025, from 3.7% in 2014.
Celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar has always been very vocal about the health conditions in our country. She feels the shift is largely due to most of the population moving to westernised diets, inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle. Childhood obesity is real and is happening and if we as parents neglect the warning signs at an early stage, we are only putting our children's health at stake here. She has time and again emphasized on why healthy eating should be taught to kids from a very young age and why we, as parents, need to believe and practise the same.
The fact is we live in an obesogenic environment and it will take a multi-pronged approach to change that — more open, greener spaces, safe footpaths for kids to walk to school, changes in pricing and government policies (not allowing Rs 5 packets of chips to be sold, for example), regulating the number of junk food ads on TV (like Jamie Oliver’s recent #adenough campaign), etc.
On the other end of the spectrum is the fact that a large part of our population actually suffers from hidden hunger as well. There are so many kids who are deficient in essential nutrients.
Rujuta Diwekar posted about the obesity and hidden hunger conditions in the country in her recent Instagram feed and we can't agree more. Time to sit up and take notice, parents?
As parents, we need to stress on serving healthy food at home and not give in to the demands of children when it comes to healthy eating.
Image Source: https://idealnutrition.com.au
Radhika Pillai
1SpecialPlace
KSP Team
Mansi Zaveri
