Lack of Proper Nutrition
Introduction
Food is among the basic need of a person. It is noted that man cannot survive without food consumption. Food can be categorized into two types, beneficial foods, and harmful foods. As the names suggest, these two foods may be of great benefit to the body and harmful to the body of the consumer, respectively. The food someone chooses to consume is good for nurturing the person’s body (Whitney et al.,2018). The choices of eating certain food are known as the eating habits of someone. Many people around the world have been found to have poor eating habits. These bad eating habits have caused these people to eat harmful foods, which cause detrimental reactions in their bodies. This essay will focus on the causes, effects, and remedies to poor nutrition in children. Effects of junk food on children.
As suggests, children can’t choose by themselves to eat unhealthy but rather their parents. Various reasons may prompt children to eat unhealthy foods. Children who hail from poor backgrounds may be forced to eat unhealthy food. The media may also be a motivation for children to urge to demanding junk foods; children may also salivate for sugary foods. Children have been seen demanding for the food they get to see advertised on television. Most children, according to Spencer (2018), are left salivating for the food advertised because they perceive it to be of greater tastes and once, they taste the food, they begin to have a liking for it, and they end up wanting to eat it more often.
The problem with the children demanding junk foods is they do not get to be aware of the harm these bad eating habits may have on them. Children don’t get to know the damages these junk foods can do their bodies. The advertisements on the television are enticing to the children; they do not care about the effect these junk foods may have on the children as they are only based on generating more profits (Kumaran,2018). Children are the victims of most advertisements about junk food as they do not know much; they just get lured due to their brains not being fully formed.
Parents may also be a cause of bad eating habits of children. Parents may have many ways in which they cause bad eating habits; for instance, if a parent neglects a child, this may cause the child to eat whatever is available, this creates a bad eating habit. Many children who get neglected don’t have a specific time set for eating at any time is meal time. This may affect the health of children as they may end up eating junk foods instead of a balanced diet.
Parents may also be a cause of bad eating habits in children; for instance, when a parent is obese, the child may also emulate them and eat junk foods. This is because children are emulative beings who copy what their parents do. If, for instance, a parent encourages the consumption of junk foods at home, what would make a child see this as abnormal? When children grow up having a positive view on the bad eating habits, their judgment may become impaired as they grow (Mehta,2013).
The effects of poor eating habits among children are as follows. Causes may be defined as the reason why something happens, and on the other hand, the effects are the results of these habits. Effects may be long term or short-term. Moving on, the first effect on children is the development of psychological issues. A recent study by Mehta et al. (2013) confirmed that children with poor eating habits are prone to go into depression as compared to those with good eating habits. The study went on to state that the children who were victims of bad eating habits were found to be anxious, of low self-esteem, and would be victimized by fellow children at school, for instance.
Children with a body that is presumed fat may get victimized in school for “eating like a pig.” There has been a rise in cases of children falling into depression for being victimized due to their body shape. Another study by Spencer (2018) proves that children who have a fat body may get to be rejected by male and female friends, this leads to this child getting anorexia as a result of the stress that develops. When a child gets rejected because of their body shape, this may make them develop permanent psychological disorders.
Another effect on children due to bad eating habits is the issue of obesity. Obesity is regarded as being overweight or being very fat. This is a common effect on children who eat a lot of junk foods. Obesity may lead to the children having a lot of health effects on the children, as first of all, they aren’t fit (Whitney et al.,2018). Some children may face the effects at a tender age, while others may experience them as they grow older.
Obesity may lead to adverse health effects on children, as some may get heart diseases; others may develop diabetes. A recent study by Kumaran (2018) found out that most obese children were having blood pressure, diabetes, heart diseases, etc. The brain of the children who have obesity may fail to function well as the harmful substances may cause detrimental effects on the children.
Recommendations
These are some of the preventive measures that need to be adopted to ensure children have good eating habits. Bearing in mind that most people have tried many ways in which to prevent the problem from continuing causing havoc in children’s health. Many approaches have been tried, but they failed to curb it completely (Stephenson et al.,2018). The first solution should be the reduction of television commercials that promote unhealthy eating habits as they are great influencers of the bad eating habits of the children. This step may be helpful to curb the increase in poor eating habits. Conversely, some critics state that this step won’t work due to the issue of the mindset of children being very hard to change. The issue that makes this problem persist more is because most junk food and fast food companies are still defiant of the policies and even go on advertising the foods making the children crave more for the foods.
Parents are the best role models of children, so if we want to curb this issue once and for all, we have to involve parents (Whitney,2018). The reason for my recommendation is because the parents are the ones in control of what their children consume daily. By changing parents’ attitudes towards the issue of poor eating habits and their effects, we can be able to bring them on board in the fight against Poor eating habits. If parents are informed about the importance of healthy eating, this will prompt them to change the habits of their children.
Conclusion
The issue of poor feeding habits has significantly hit children. Most children face this problem due to the most positivity that is associated with the consumption of junk foods. This is to means that the adverts and commercials are enticing and luring children to demand junk foods, which makes them want more each time. Most parents influence the habits of children as if you portray to them a positive image of the consumption of junk foods. This will make children grow up with the mentality that it’s good to eat junk. These habits detrimental effects on children such as obesity, heart-related diseases, and blood pressure. The children may also become depressed after becoming obese and having been rejected by their peers due to their body shape. Changing the attitudes of parents towards junk food is the best solution to pursue for us to have a healthy society.
References
Mehta, N. M., Corkins, M. R., Lyman, B., Malone, A., Goday, P. S., Carney, L., … & American
Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) Board of Directors. (2013). Defining
pediatric malnutrition: a paradigm shift toward etiology‐related definitions. Journal of
Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 37(4), 460-481.
Spencer, N. (2018). Poverty and child health. CRC Press.
Stephenson, J., Heslehurst, N., Hall, J., Schoenaker, D. A., Hutchinson, J., Cade, J. E., … & Kumaran, K. (2018). Before the beginning: nutrition and lifestyle in the preconception period
and its importance for future health. The Lancet, 391(10132), 1830-1841.
Whitney, E. N., & Rolfes, S. R. (2018). Understanding nutrition. Cengage Learning.
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