May be caused by the spread of fast-food restaurants, or the emergence of video games and television programs, which pulled children from playgrounds to living rooms, and perhaps dietary and behavioral changes, but the result is one more of the children in the world suffer from overweight and obesity.
The childhood obesity problem has a health and economic impact, The Institute U.S. National studies health describe the global rise in childhood obesity over the past three decades as a "B", according to the Center for American for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has doubled the prevalence of obesity among children in the United States three times during the that period.
And obese child more prone to obesity when they grow up and the consequent high risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.
Japan has been unable to solve the problem of childhood obesity, but has made some of the biggest successes in maintaining the health of children among the countries of the developed world.
When I started the problem of obesity in children in Japan three decades ago rates were low but not least in comparison to other countries, and today has become child obesity rates in the Near Japan among developed countries. It is widely believed that the reason for this is the nature of Japanese society and therefore his experience in reducing obesity rates are not applicable in other places, but closer look disprove this perception, in fact, Japan is not immune to rising rates of obesity among children has doubled in 25 years.
While I saw the other nations of their children become fatter and less healthy, Japan has decided to deal with the problem differently, since launched a number of policies that have worked to address the rise in childhood obesity. And one of the most important of these policies and in accordance with the Japanese health officials and school lunches.School mealsAnd planning specialists in nutrition and school lunches Japanese, it includes fresh, locally grown ingredients in addition to rice, soups, vegetables and fish. The nutrition program Japanese successful and cheap at the same time, it does not exceed the cost three dollars per meal, and traces its roots to the period after World War II when Japan was living a severe shortage of food, where the international aid food source school students, and was their meals contain radish and bread and fat-free milk.
After 1970, the state became able to secure food students who took its modern form the current component of meals reserved in special envelopes open to eat in the classroom, and not difficult to note they do not contain fried foods and soft drinks.
The evidence lies the success of the Japanese diet in numbers, despite the high rate of child obesity rates in Japan remained high and one of the slowest among the countries of the developed world, according to the International Journal of Obesity children, which is published in the United States.In Britain, child obesity rates have risen three-fold in Iceland for more than four-fold, while the increase in childhood obesity rates in Finland and the Netherlands less than Japan, but the data refers to the fact that Japanese children are still less likely to be obese than their counterparts there.
But why? The answer is that schools do not give students the freedom of choice, he is bound to eat in the school meal, as there are no machines to sell candy and soft drinks students are not allowed to bring food from home to school only after they reach high school.
So what explains the high rates of obesity after the age of 15 when allowing pupils Japanese buy food, which also means that the strict diet is the secret of this success the Japanese resistance childhood obesity, which may not appeal to the young students in his time, but will reflect positively on the health of the community .Source: Washington Post
