Child weight health and obesity

Simple carbs like bread and corn may not look like sugar on your plate, but in our body, that is what they arte converted to when digested. A bagel is not any different than a bag of candy to your body.

Research suggests that it is the over consumption of carbohydrates sugar and sweeteners that is mainly responsible for the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Refined carbohydrates like those in wheat bread, crackers,pasta cause changes in our blood chemistry that encourages the body to store the calories as fat and intensify hunger, and makes losing weight a difficult task.

The sugars stimulate the production of insulin, which cause fat cells to go into storage overdrive, leading to weight gain. Since fewer calories are left to fuel the body, we start to feel hungry, and metabolism begins to slow in an effort to save energy. We eat more and gain more weight, never feeling full.

The rise in obesity in youth and teens over the past few decades is not only from refined carbohydrates messing with our body and metabolism. There is evidence that processing itself raises the danger posed by food.

A 2010 study that reviewed all other studies on fat concluded that there was no significant evidence that saturated fat is associated with an increase in cardiovascular disease. Another study concluded thst current evidence does not support low consumption of saturated fats or high consumption of the polyunstaturated fats that are often considered heart healthy. More research is needed.

Increasing daily exercise is also important for a child’s physical and mental health. If a child is overweight there self esteem and social interactions will possibly impacted and mood will also be affected . Parents can set limited on : video games, tv, internet, smart phone, you tube and more. Children can do homework, read, and exercise before accessing electronics if parents set limits and boundaries with their children. In my opinion this is vital for physical, mental, and emotional health for your child and teen now and for their future. Exercise is one of the best natural mood regulators.  Parents can model exercise daily: walking after dinner, running, going to the gym, and being active.

There are many items that can impact your child’s cognitive development.
Sleep is just one piece that researchers believe impact a child’s
ability to perform at their peak. It is not just the amount of sleep a
child receives that effects performance. Children from kindergarten
through 8th grade need at least 10 hours a day of sleep. Most children
are not receiving enough sleep.

The quality of sleep is also very important. A child that sleeps with
the television on is not receiving the deep sleep needed to receive the
benefits cognitively of a long sleep period. A child’s mood will also be
impacted without enough quality sleep and behavior will also most
likely be impacted at home and at school. Turning off electronics or
removing them from your child’s room is the best action a parent can
take to help a child receive quality sleep.

Creating a regular and routine bed time is vital for cognitive
functioning. Inconsistent bedtimes hurt a child’s cognitive development
by disrupting circadian rhythms. Inconsistent bedtimes also may affect
the brain’s ability to work with the synapses and neural pathways needed
for cognitive development.

Bed times for children on the weekends should not be more than an hour
off from the weekday bedtime used for the school year. Inconsistent
bedtimes were associated with the poorest test scores in cognitive
assessments in : reading, math, and spatial functioning among children
in a research study recently at the UK Cohort study group.

Nintey five percent or more of all adolescents receive too little sleep according to experts in the field of sleep studies. fatigue and drowsiness are responsible for over 100,000 plus accidents each year.

Research shows that their is a clear connection between poor grades and limited amount of sleep. More than twenty five percent of teenagers receive less than 6.5 hours sleep per night. Most sleep experts state adolescents need at least 9.5 hours. This means teens need to be in bed or asleep by 9pm which does sound early, however, this is due to early school times.

Many research studies on sleep state poor sleep habits are connected to: depression, ADHD, ADD, Anxiety, Anger, and emotional problems.

The truth is difficult to swallow for most adolescents and teenagers but this is the reality and the more your teen or adolescent gets close to 9.5 hrs per night the better.

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Fifty Six million prescriptions for sleep medication were dispensed last year. This is mind boggling…We all want a quick fix..Drive through Strabucks for our soy mocha latte. We want a quick fix if we are tired so we have a red bulll or energy drink. We want it now and we want it rapidly. We have lost our patience and we are not willing to look at the root of our challenges or prevention.Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger used prescriptions for sleep and this did not work. Many americans are also using prescriptions for sleep. Self medicating with alcohol and pils can exacerbate the problem according to experts.

Insomnia can create social issues such as: less enjoyable relationships with partners, decreased ability to enjoy freinds and family. Decreased enjoyment with ones career or job. Insomnia can trigger physical issues: gastrointestinal, hypertension, heart disease,and diabetes. Insomnia feeds into the potential for depression. Sleep is very important and many do not understand how vital it is to our health.

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Counseling and therapy can provide many techniques to help induce sleep: hypnotherapy, progressive relaxation techniques, visualization, anxiety reduction exercises, diaphramatic breathing, cognitive behavioral techniques, DBT, and more.

Researchers at Harvard medical School have shown CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy have shown greater improvements for chronic-sleep insomnia than from Ambien. This study was reported in the 9-27 archives of Internal medicine and research was funded by the National Institute of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Sleeping pills are the most frequent treatment for insomnia, yet CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques clearly were more successful in helping the majority of the study participants to become normal sleepers. The pills were found to be only moderately effective compared to Cognitive Behavioral therapy, CBT, and lost their effectiveness soon after they were discontinued.” according to Greg jacobs, PHD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard and a researcher at Harvard-affiliated Sleep Disorders Centers.