by Gue Xuan

Created on: December 03, 2009

Weight losing is the common trend nowadays. Everyone, young to old, both males and females, are talking about losing weight, be it the best way to lose weight, the benefits of weight loss or even effortless weight loss. These trends originate mainly from the media where slim is defined as beautiful. Also, having a healthy weight, as defined using the Body Mass Index (BMI), would render one to lower risks of diseases like diabetes, which has caused much loss of income in most countries with large proportion of their population troubled by these diseases. Even though there are many health benefits from having a healthy weight, I feel that it is not recommended for young children to join weight loss camps.

Though many people might say that we should start young so that there would be any health problems when these children grow old, I feel that children are supposed to be able to eat as they like. They are in the stage of growth and should take in as much nutrients as their body requires. Weight loss camps may not be the way to help them control their weights and might in fact cause the reverse. They might secretly eat those forbidden stuff and in the end, cause much more weight gain. Children has minds that are easily impressionable. Hence I believe that there are other more effective and fun methods to help these children lose their weight and achieve their target weights. For example, parents can devise recipes which would allow their child to take in the necessary nutrients but not in excess. There are also many such freely available recipes on the net for parents that want to try them. Organizing fun trips outdoors would also help children achieve their exercise. Even an evening walk around the park would also benefit them in a way. However, plain walks might sound boring to the children, however, if parents are able to include neighbours and make it a fun activity to do in the parks, the children would definitely look forward to these activities each day.

Childhood is a time for enjoyment. To me, these weight loss camps seem like a scary encounter. I do not think we should take any of the enjoyment away from these children, even though we should still watch their diet in order to prevent any debilitating diseases in their future years, or even when they are old.

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