Edited by Doctor Nicola Manca
Improved socio-economic conditions, poor eating habits and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle have favored the formation of some physical alterations, which are the consequence of an imbalance between muscular, skeletal and weight development. These changes have caused a notable increase in childhood obesity, which in some countries like ours is reaching peaks of 20% of the healthy youth population.
In most cases, the triggering factor is scarce or even non-existent physical activity, due to a lack of family, school or environmental organization, in this sense.
Physical activity is in fact a fundamental component of man, especially in the age of development.
The growth of the child, like that of all living beings, is strictly dependent on the functional demands that come from the environment in which he lives. Each function has developed as a consequence of the specific requests coming from the outside world and each organ has taken on its definitive characteristics as a consequence of the functional needs.
Muscular and skeletal systems develop harmoniously in the body and in individual organs, especially in individuals who continually stimulate and exercise them appropriately.
The "potential for obesity"
We can consider obesity as a real pathology, characterized by an excess of adipose tissue, due both to an increase in volume and in the number of adipocytes (the cells that form adipose tissue).
It is essential to fight obesity since childhood, because adolescence is the critical period in which "the potential for obesity of an individual" is established, given the number of adipocytes.
In adolescent stage in fact, the number of fat cells increases significantly, and then remain approximately unchanged for the rest of life. It is therefore important to prevent an excessive increase in adipose tissue and in the number of adipocytes.
In a normal weight subject the number of fat cells is about 25-30 billion, in obese subjects this value rises on average between 40 and 100 billion.
In the passage from adolescence to adulthood they are almost exclusively the size of adipocytes to vary: they increase when you gain weight and decrease with weight loss; in obese subjects the volume of adipocytes is approximately double that of normal weight subjects.
Among the serious consequences of obesity that can affect children and teenagers early, the most frequent are represented by problems with the respiratory system (sleep apnea, fatigue); to the osteoarticular one (varus-valgus lower limbs, reduced joint mobility, flat feet); to the digestive and cardiovascular systems (inability to respond adequately to an effort, even of slight intensity and limited in time, lower ventilatory efficiency.)
Furthermore, in the developmental age, body overweight generates other unpleasant consequences on a psychological level. The obese child can frequently feel uncomfortable and ashamed, even going so far as to exclude himself from social life and from normal recreational and motor activities. Often they are children who tend to withdraw. at home and overeating, creating a dangerous vicious circle (overweight, motor inactivity, exclusion from group life, overeating).
Lack of motor activity is very often both a cause and a consequence of obesity.
Conclusions
It is important to remember that an obese child will in most cases be an obese adult, both for the exclusion from normal motor activities and for the excessive increase in fat cells during the age of development.
The best way to have a healthy adult is therefore to prevent overweight and related psychophysical pathologies. To obtain this result it is necessary to associate correct eating habits with adequate motor activity, which takes into account the psychophysical difficulties connected to the age of development and aggravated by obesity.
The figure of a professional in the field of psychomotor education is therefore fundamental, who helps families to educate or re-educate the child to a correct lifestyle, who accompanies him until adulthood and leads him to be a healthy adult.
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