One of the biggest concerns of those of us who have children is childhood obesity. It is not for less, if we take into account that 22% of Spanish children between 3 and 12 years are overweight. It is one of the great evils that afflicts the child population along with cancer and diabetes.
It is necessary to instill good eating habits from birth, encourage exercise and practice less PlayStation and more outdoor life.
The funny thing is that according to the report Tulipán (from Unilever), focused on the knowledge of the concerns of Spanish parents and the eating habits of families, 56% of parents believe that obesity is the most important concern related to infant feeding and 95% believe that food is essential for proper brain development and that it directly affects children's intelligence.
Research based on questions asked of 1,000 parents between the ages of 26 and 50 has also analyzed what children eat and how their daily diet is composed. 21% of children eat sweets every day like pastries or cookies. Their daily diet consists basically of 90% of dairy products, 78% of bread or cereals in oil, more than 50% of fresh fruit and only 27% of vegetables. Finally, very low marks for fish. Only 2% take it daily.
If we care so much about the feeding of our children, why are there such high rates of childhood obesity? Why do the figures speak of unhealthy habits? Of course, in the development of obesity there are other factors, including anxiety and family stress, which we talked about in the previous post.
I believe, without any scientific basis, but it is my humble opinion, that in addition to bad eating habits, today's children supplement their parents' lack of attention with food.
Perhaps another of the keys is not knowing what our children eat, since many eat breakfast, lunch and snack at school. 65% of mothers say they know what their children eat every day, compared with 55% of parents.
