Obesity is the new malnutrition, say docs

Hyderabad: One in five children, mostly hailing from poor families, is found to be underweight. On the other side of the spectrum Hyderabad is ex-periencing another health problem among children, that of overweight and obesity.

According to Dr Abhishek from the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, obesity is the new malnutrition among children from affluent and even middle class families. Because of the wrong choice of food, children are found to be overweight with protein and vitamin deficiency in particular.

Not only are underweight children malnourished, the overweight kids fall in the same category, he said.

Dr Abhishek said that every month parents bring five to six school-going students for consultation as against one or two students about four to five years ago with issues of obesity.

“This has to do with wrong choice of food habits and getting addicted to burgers, pizzas, deep fried chicken and oily dishes and processed and packaged foods like noodles, chips.

Nutritionist Sujatha Ste-phen said working parents, due to lack of time, pack processed food in children’s tiffin boxes. This could have an adverse impact if child-ren get addicted to it, she said. She added that role of parents become very crucial in deciding food habits of children, especially from primary classes, so that they won’t face problems as they grow up.