Weighing 108kg at the age of 12, Nguyen Thanh Cong (character name has been changed, residing in Dong Thap) is a severely obese case being monitored at Children's Hospital 2 (HCMC).
According to the family, in addition to main meals, she has a habit of drinking about 3 glasses of milk tea per day for a long time. Rapid weight gain not only affects her appearance but also leads to many serious health problems.
Due to his excessive weight, Cong often had to sleep in a sitting position and experienced episodes of apnea while sleeping. Test results also showed that liver enzyme and blood fat levels all increased higher than the permissible limit.
According to doctors at Children's Hospital 2, this condition is related to a prolonged excess energy diet and sedentary lifestyle. To improve health, pediatric patients need to adjust their diet, increase exercise and lose weight according to a scientific roadmap under the supervision of medical staff.
According to the World Health Organization, the "obesity pandemic" is becoming a global problem, a risk factor related to about 3.71 million deaths each year. This chronic disease is an inevitable consequence of modern lifestyles. In fact, the rate of overweight and obese children is increasing in urban areas.
According to Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hau, Head of Nutrition Department, Children's Hospital 2, Ho Chi Minh City, the hospital is increasingly recording many overweight children and those at risk of metabolic disorders from a very early age, mainly the group of students at the end of primary and secondary school. Even, many cases of obesity, high blood fat, and metabolic disorders occur before the age of 10.
According to medical experts, unhealthy eating habits that are difficult to control, such as drinking milk tea every day, eating fried chicken every week, eating a lot of snacks, foods high in sugar and fat... but being lazy to exercise are the reasons why children are obese.
BS.CKII Tran Thi Kim Chi, Head of Nutrition - Diet Department, Gia Dinh People's Hospital, in urban environments like Ho Chi Minh City, children are facing many invisible "traps". The most noticeable are "traps" in convenience food and fast food that appear densely around schools at cheap and attractive prices.
Children access energy-rich foods too easily. Along with that, a dense schedule from formal to extracurricular activities causes time spent on physical exercise to be cut. Doctors are also concerned about psychological "traps" from the media and social networks. Eye-catching food advertisements on social networks easily affect the consumption behavior of children and teenagers. Study pressure makes children tend to seek to eat as a way to relieve stress.
