Clinical-social and psychological-pedagogical approaches in the prevention and treatment of obesity and metabolic syndrome in children

Abstract

Childhood obesity is an acute problem in the European Region, including countries participating in the World Health Organization's European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative. According to their data, the proportion of overweight children reaches 43%. Overweight and obesity, as well as related diseases, are largely preventable. For this reason, the prevention of childhood obesity should be given top priority. Adolescence obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide, with the prevalence of complicated obesity increasing at least fourfold over the past 35 years. Most obese adolescents also have excess body fat mass in adulthood, which increases the risk of obesity-related complications, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and negatively affects social and psychological health. In modern conditions the prevention of the overweight and obesity formation among schoolchildren is not systemic: no attention is paid to the identification of possible risk factors, no unified approaches exist among specialists of various levels to the methodology for preventing the overweight and obesity formation, rational hygienic measures for preventing obesity are not always implemented, the causes of late diagnostics of overweight and obesity among schoolchildren by pediatricians are not fully analyzed, the motivation of children and parents to change their lifestyle in order to fight overweight are not sufficiently studied. The systemic implementation of such preventive measures could help to reduce the number of overweight schoolchildren and improve the health of the child population.