Weight Issues in Youth Causing Severe Health Conditions

Childhood obesity is a severe medical condition affecting children and adolescents. Obesity is a concern because extra pounds start children on the path to harsh health conditions that were earlier considered the exclusive domain of adults. In addition, childhood obesity causes health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, and high LDL cholesterol, leading to poor self-esteem and depression.

The optimal strategy to effectively reduce childhood obesity and manage weight issues effectively is to improve your entire family’s eating and exercise habits. Preventing and treating childhood obesity helps protect your child’s health currently and later.

What Are the Symptoms of Childhood Obesity?

All children are not obese or carry extra pounds. Unfortunately, some children have larger than average body frames. Children expectedly have varying amounts of body fat in their structure at different stages of development. Trying to determine how your child appears if weight issues are a concern is challenging.

The most popular guideline accepted as a measure of obesity is body mass index (BMI). Medical practitioners use your child’s growth charts and BMI and perform other tests if required to help you figure out whether your child’s weight may pose concerns.

If you are concerned about your child putting on too much weight, you must discuss the issue with their doctor. The physician will consider your child’s history of growth and development, your family’s height, and weight history to determine where your child’s growth chart leads. The examination by the doctor helps determine whether your child’s weight is healthy or unhealthy.

Causes of Weight Issues in Youth

The causes of weight issues in youth vary and have different contributors. Lifestyle issues like too little physical activity, too many calories from food and beverages are the primary contributors to childhood obesity. However, hormonal factors and genetics are also contributors.

There is a combination of factors that increase your child’s risk of becoming overweight. Some of them are:

• Lack of Exercise — children who shun exercise are more likely to gain weight because they don’t burn sufficient calories. Children spend too much time before computers and TVs are playing videogames instead of venturing outdoors for some much-wanted exercise.
• Diet – regular consumption of high-calorie foods, including fast-food’s, baked goods, and vending machine snacks, cause your child to gain weight. Desserts and candy are also culprits and cause weight gain. In addition, the evidence currently available proves juices, sugary drinks, and sports drinks also contribute to weight gain.
• Socio-Economic Factors — people in some communities have limited access to supermarkets or resources. These people frequently purchase convenience foods with longer shelf lives like frozen meals, crackers, and cookies. People living in lower-income neighborhoods don’t have access to safe areas for exercise.
• Psychological Factors — individual, parental, and family stress increase children’s risk of obesity, leading some to eat more to cope with the emotions or fight boredom. Parents of such children also have similar tendencies.

After gaining weight and termed obese most children try to determine how to lose weight. Thinking about losing weight is more straightforward than becoming a lighter self, primarily if the weight issues are caused by psychological factors.

How Do Children Consider Battling Weight Issues

Most teenage adults seeking weight loss issues never consider visiting a medical specialist until it is too late. Instead, they prefer relying on quick-fix methods to lose weight instead of understanding why weight gain is such a complex problem.

Children find things much better when they make an effort to determine the causes for their weight gain by seeking help from a psychiatrist in Richardson. Weight gain and psychiatry? You probably think both have nothing in common with each other, but the reality is entirely different. Overweight people have difficulties concentrating, insomnia, lack of interest in social activities, and many other problems classified as dysthymia by the medical fraternity.

Children of parents of children seeking information about dysthymia must contact a psychiatrist near them to understand why their children are constantly gaining weight and searching for methods to reduce it. Searching for solutions helps parents because they meet an experienced professional in psychiatry offering a multipronged and multidisciplinary approach to weight issues.

Dr. Syed Quadri examines patients for weight issues and other complications to provide personalized and comprehensive psychiatry services to adults, children, and adolescents, helping them overcome weight issues by thinking differently and improving their self-esteem and body.