The obesity in children and adolescents is causes generally by genetic causes. This disease of childlike obesity and adolescence occurs mainly in developed countries and it constitutes a public health problem. It appears generally before the two years, in a 50% of the cases, the rest is observed during the puberty and adolescence. There is an idea or belief that the “fatness” in children is synonym of health, or that with the age they reduce of weight; this belief occurs because the parents don’t realize about the limit between healthy child and obese child and they leave that being fatty because they are seen like this healthier. It is necessary to control this very popular belief. This childlike obesity can be avoided since the first months of the children’s life visiting the pediatrician to being prescribed a good alimentary habit. This belief is common that it’s thought that it’s transitory and it’s only an expression of growth and development of the child; unluckily this opinion is not only accepted by the majority of people, but for some physicians, who don’t give it the due importance when they detect it. The obesity in childhood generates the formation of a major number of fat cells that in adult age will be more difficult to eliminate them. From the childlike obesity it’s passed to the obesity in adolescence.
Children’s obesity is a disease for the entire life
One of the problems of the parents is like knowing if their children or adolescents are obese, for that there is a practical formula (not exact) for children of 2 to 5 years that the pediatricians recommend. The formula is the following, multiply the age in years by two plus eight (three-year child = 3 x 2 + 8 = 14 kg); if it passes of this result the child is obese. These factors have to be carefully compared when it’s analyzed the obesity in children and adolescents.
In percentages, from the total of children who were obese in their adolescence, approximately an 80 percent of them will keep being obese during the rest of their lifes. There are 5% of these children that in their adult age can lose weight and being kept in their ideal weight during five years after the treatment, but when they leave the treatment against obesity, they return to regain the lost weight in the first six to twelve months.
The main cause of childlike obesity is by genetic factors, and by heredity of the obese parents. A second cause is for socioeconomic factors that allow the families with sedentary ways of life, accompanied by an alimentation of junk food, of families who only eat good food of good taste, generally too much seasoned and with a sweet dessert at the end. Other causes are the health state of the child and the family, the environment in which the child is developed; that the child acquires sedentary attitudes like eating candies in front of the television, during the lounge or table games.
The treatments of 6 – 12 months don’t serve

against obesity
The obese children are passive, repressed, and shy, they use the overfeeding as an escape attitude, they eat compulsively, and they have low school and sporting performance. The childlike obesity affects the psychology of the children, because it doesn’t difference between hunger and other needs or affections that are developed in the reciprocal experience next to their mothers. When the mother feeds the child in response to their demands that are not nutritional, like tenderness, anger, or fear, he will not be able to difference between what it’s hunger and being angry. This will cause an overfeeding and confusion before the affective demands of the child, that they won’t allow him having clarity of their needs, which will generate major insecurity.
The children’s obesity becomes the children shy
The obese boy and adolescent show little tolerance to the attitudes of their partners and familiars in relation with their aspect and acceptance, very soon they felt marginalized and rejected, their partner’s insults can be destructive.

This condition is aggravated in adolescents in those that coincide with their own physical changes of their age. To be obese or having light overweight, it’s out of fashion. The obese body can represent a protection, a shell, a barrier, or a mask as defense to be protected of your insecurity, dependence, and anxiety

a) Control and Prevention of the Obesity in children:
- The main rule to avoid the childlike obesity is to change the ways of life of the family permanently, modifying the nutritional habits of the whole family, mainly the parents (mother), who, in spite of not being obese, must watch closely their children foods and limit the exaggerated consumption of foods. The pediatrician must prescribe new nutritional habits for the entire family.
first rule: to change the way of life permanently
- To give them an appropriate food to children since their birth and during the first years of life is the best way of preventing the obesity to be appeared. Since the first months of the life are identified the flavors, are known the foods, their textures, are acquired the food habits, are marked the tastes, and the preferences for the foods. To avoid junk food.
- To give them alimentation of the breast (free demand) preferentially; the child must consume what he needs, trying to avoid the use of the feeding bottle because it tends to feed the child more, what it can be the beginning of the obesity and a bad habit. In this point also it’s correspond to some mothers a little of guilt, because for a little of esthetics they take off the breast to their children at 6 or 12 months, having to give them to breast-feed until the age of 2 years as it was doing formerly.
- To the children of 4 – 6 months, they must be feeding with other foods different from the maternal milk, it must be begun with only one food; to offer it for two or three followed days to know your tolerance; don’t mix foods; don’t force your acceptance; to offer first the solids and after the liquids; to increase progressively the offered quantity; to promote the consumption of natural foods, to prepare them without the addition of seasoning and species; to offer foods in appropriate texture for the age, first paps, followed by picks and pieces. You have to remember that food is a habit for what you should adapt yourself to the schedule and the family menu, which it favors the socialization and learning. For any reason you will give them candies or chocolates.
- To give an alimentary culture to the child, as specific fixed schedules for the food times, to determine the place for the consumption of foods, to indicate what is the behavior your child must have in the dinning room, to promote an appropriate chewing and to mark the time available for the consumption of foods, among others, they will be the bases of the alimentation habits.
- To avoid the use of some foods and sweets (candies, chocolates, gaseous drinks, snacks, etc.), as prizes or between foods, because these attitudes can cause that the child starts to have a marked preference for these foods, or prefers the sweets to his daily food. From another point of view, that the parents use this alimentation rule to avoid the crying or some demand improper of the child, giving them sweets before eating and at the time of eating these children don’t have the minimum desire of eating.

b) Treatment of the Child Obesity
A practical form to make it is through the following steps:
1. Change the ways of life of the family and alimentary habits:
It’s the most difficult task, but not impossible, using different techniques we recommend:
- Daily Control: It consists in that the child takes a week register of the food consumption, specifying the quantity of each one of them, as well as the physical activity that realizes and for how long. Also, it will be treated to avoid the activities that condition the food consumption out of the food schedules, like going shopping to the supermarket before having eaten. To consume foods that as usual they are accompanied by other hypercalorics, like hamburgers with potatoes and soft drinks, pizzas, hot dogs, and especially what it’s known as JUNK FOOD.
- Modify the dietetic habits: To change the bad habits and reinforce the good habits, like the chewing, eating slowly, to decrease the food quantity, to balance the diet, to avoid the sweets, to drink water instead of soft drinks, not to do another activity simultaneous as watching television or entertaining him with toys, to change the habits of the whole family, to plan week goals to evaluate them, and increase the daily physical activity.
2. Appropriate diet:
Under medical prescription will be supplied the daily caloric requirements of the child, accordingly to his growth and developed stage. It’s convenient to suggest foods that habitually are consumed and particularly those that are more pleasant for the child, so the physician will be able to select of them, those which are appropriate for the new diet. You have to remember that the dietetic prescription is just a part of the nutritional treatment.
The diets very low in calories are not indicated for children or adolescents due to they are diets that are used for periods very short and don’t modify the alimentary behavior, what it’s not recommended in children either.
The bad alimentary habits of the parents are learned by the children: To add salt before tasting the foods, to use sugar in excess, seasonings, sauces, and oils, they are some of the examples that during the foods of the day, the child acquires, initially by imitation, and that later repeats, which it will generate a bad habit for his future life.
3. Daily exercise:
The daily exercise will help to burn calories, to the waste of energy, and it will contribute to reduce of weight. Incorporate the child and adolescent to daily physical activity is an essential principle. It’s recommended that this activity does it accompanied by the parents, brothers, or friends with a frequency of 3 to 5 days per week, begin it with duration of 15 minutes, and increasing it until one hour. Activities like walking, swimming, cycling, or else, some sport of interest and fun for the child as playing soccer or skating are always an exercise. On the other hand, it should be favor the daily physical activity in home, try to walk more, to climb the stairs instead of using the elevator, and to ride a bicycle. To diminish sedentary activities for long periods, such as watching television, using the computer, and playing video games.