I’m writing this column on Father’s Day and I couldn’t help but occupy this space insisting on the decision-making role we have in the healthy future of our children. But before you look away and leaf through this page, I leave the responsibility on your side for what comes next… Your child can develop serious illnesses related to bad eating habits and lack of physical activity! It’s factual. And it doesn’t just apply to other people’s children. I’m sure he’s an excellent father/mother, but sometimes it’s not enough to protect, it’s not enough to guarantee, it’s not enough to want the best.
Portugal faces worrying levels of childhood obesity and the most worrying thing is not just the number, it is the normalization. Children get tired easily, the sedentary lives of their parents reflect on them over time, the fast food they eat and eat is often masked as convenience. The easy reward, the screen like babysitterlack of time. Everything understandable, everything human, everything is part of this society that lives in high rotation, but all of this is also cumulative.
You are probably part of the first generation of parents to have to deal with this type of challenge in exactly this way. But he is also part of that first generation that has never had as much access to information, tools, alternatives as he does now. The question is not, it seems to me, whether we know enough, it is whether we are willing to act differently.
Maybe change starts with small gestures. In walking more and driving less. In cooking more with them and buying less “easy food”. In saying no, when it’s easier to say yes. Set an example. And always remember that children hardly value what they don’t see. If sport is not part of the parents’ lives, it will hardly be part of theirs. In the end, what’s at stake isn’t just a child’s weight. It is the weight of decisions that shape the adult she will be. And this responsibility, although unsettling, is yours at this moment.
Does it make you think?
– 31.9% of children between 6 and 8 years old are overweight; 13.5% are already considered obese. Source: Child Nutrition Surveillance System (COSI)
– 64% of children between 10 and 11 years old are physically inactive. Source: Directorate-General for Health
– 1 in 6 young people does the minimum necessary for their health.
– 80% of the Portuguese population does not meet the recommended levels of physical activity, which demonstrates that the problem does not start with children, it is cultural and transversal to families.
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