Let’s teach our kids healthy habits

Let’s teach our kids healthy habits

By Kelsey Lee, MD, DABOM, Avera Medical Group Sibley & Osceola Regional Health Center

From infancy to teenage years, children have the very important job of growing up. Adequate nourishment will fuel your child’s comings and goings. Monitoring their growth is one of the many valuable parts of a wellness visit, which typically happen annually for children and teens and more often for babies and toddlers.

Just as adult obesity is on the rise, pediatric obesity (weight exceeding height expectations) affects about 1 in 5 children. This rate was about 5% in the 1960s, took a swift increase in the 1980s-1990s, and has continued to rise to its current 19.7%. Obesity is a chronic, multifactorial disease that can have a number of physical and psychological health consequences.

Prevention and treatment of pediatric obesity happens with small decisions in the grocery store and at the dinner table, as well as with policy changes at a community level. Avoiding processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages is one personal step families can make towards health. Selection and preparation of nourishing foods to keep your family fed and happy is another.

If you are interested in learning more about prevention and treatment of pediatric obesity, please attend my Lunch and Learn at noon on February 29, which will be held in the Multi-purpose Room at Osceola Regional Health Center. As a Diplomat of the American Board of Obesity Medicine (DABOM), I have a special interest in this important area of medicine.

Call to schedule an appointment for a wellness visit at Avera Medical Group Sibley at 712-754-3658 to ask your doctor about your child’s growth.