“It’s not obesity itself that’s scary, it’s its consequences”: authorities will take over fat schoolchildren

Specialists of the Novosibirsk Research Institute of Hygiene in Rospotrebnadzor learned what Novosibirsk schools eat at school and at home, what their daily routine is, how much time they devote to physical activity. Children underwent medical examinations, including assessment of the state of the musculoskeletal system and organs of vision, as well as biochemical blood tests. The researchers also measured the students’ height and weight.

As it turned out, at school the children received a full healthy diet with a sufficient amount of fresh vegetables and fruits. However, schoolchildren did not miss the opportunity to buy buns, sweets and juices in the canteen – but the main nutritional problems began at home, where the children received insufficient vitamin content, excess salt, fat and simple food. carbohydrates.

The higher the proportion of pastries, sweets, sausages and convenience foods in the diet, the more children suffer from overweight, cardiovascular diseases and diseases of the digestive system.

In particular, overweight and obese schoolchildren suffered from cardiovascular diseases, flat feet, thyroid diseases, food allergies, 14.5% more frequent visual disturbances, and concomitant visual and postural disorders, much more frequently than their leaner peers. However, at the same time, they were less prone to posture violations in general, and also suffered less from anemia.

Most often, diseases in overweight children manifested themselves if the parents of these children were overweight.

Daily consumption of sausage and sausage, consumption of pastry, cake and pastry more than once in three days, consumption of fast food once a week or more frequently affected weight gain. The love of chips, ketchup and mayonnaise led to diseases of the digestive system. Adding salt to food and adding three or more tablespoons of sugar to tea have been associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The information obtained formed the basis of the “Basics of Healthy Eating in School-Age Children” health education program.

Interaction with families will be established through the school, Irina Novikova, doctor of medical sciences, professor and director of the Novosibirsk Rospotrebnadzor Hygiene Research Institute of the federal budgetary scientific institution, told socialbites.ca. During the medical examination of schoolchildren, specialists collect information on height, weight, body fat and other indicators, identify possible risks, and then inform parents about them and give recommendations on how to improve the child’s health.

Next, the children, together with their parents, will have to evaluate the calorie content of their diet and their activity, and find out what needs to be changed in the diet. With the help of special online tests, they can check how well they have learned the recommendations.

For school workers, the website of the Novosibirsk Research Institute of Hygiene has videos on healthy eating that can be used in school educational events.

Parents are not required to follow the new guidelines. However, as surveys show, reluctance to follow recommendations on healthy eating is expressed in only 5-7 % of cases.

“While there is a pretty broad, good policy on healthy eating today, when it comes to major sources of information, there aren’t many parents who wouldn’t want to get involved. The prevalence of obesity and overweight among schoolchildren of different subjects of the Russian Federation reaches 25-38%, and among their parents – about 50%. These are young people who have children, and accordingly, the food culture is passed on to the child,” says Novikova.

Obesity accounts for about 25% of all cases of overweight in Russians, he recalls.

“It’s not obesity itself that’s scary, it’s the consequences,” says Novikova. – These are diseases of the cardiovascular system, diseases of the endocrine system, the musculoskeletal system, which today have become the leading cause of death in Russia, in the adult population, joints begin to suffer. If you look today, how many operations are performed on the joints – yes, this has never happened in the Russian Federation. What’s the reason? The reason is being overweight. Today, parents need to deal with these facts, then one will think, stop stuffing the child with sweets.

Today there is a substitute for chocolate, sweets, cakes. The main thing is to change your thinking, reorganize yourself – then the children will also be reorganized.

The program is planned to be implemented this year in schools in the Siberian Federal District – Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk regions, Republic of Khakassia, Republic of Tyva. After running and optimizing the program, it can be expanded to all of Russia.