World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on Monday, Jan. 25, and revealed that at least 41 million children around the world are overweight or obese. The organization also expressed concern as they found out that these kids are under the age of five and they expect that the number will double after 10 years, according to the report of Baby News.
The agency said that the number of overweight children has risen by 10 million across the globe since 1990. The organization said that the records showed that almost half of the obese or overweight children are living in Asia and 25% are from Africa. In addition, the number of overweight children in the developing countries skyrocketed to 15.5 million in 2014 from 7.5 million in 1990.
WHO then said that one of the major contributing factors for the condition is unhealthy foods and unhealthy beverages marketing. They believe that these kids were bombarded by unhealthy marketing strategy. The agency also said that the other factors to blame are "environment" and "urbanization of populations."
Thus, Peter Gluckman, co-chair of the commission said that the best way to stop this "alarming issue" is for the government to implement stringent measures that can impede the possible environmental causes of obesity to give children a healthy life. "Increased political commitment is needed to tackle the global challenge of childhood overweight and obesity," he added.
The agency also included a number of recommendations to solve the growing trend. They included that children should be educated about the importance of diet and physical activities, promotion of the intake of healthy foods, educate parents about better preconception and prenatal care, as well as greater focus on child's weight management.
More so, WHO added that all the countries should pay attention to the issue and must do something about it. For one, they should develop programs to get children involve in physical activities.
