As we usher in the New Year, Gboyega Alaka brings to the front burner, the growing cases of child obesity in our society, highlighting the health and psychological effects on the youngsters.
Eight-year-old Modupe (not real name) got the biggest embarrassment of her young life recently, when she was shooed off the stage mid-way into a children dance contest. It was the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the popular radio programme, Lunch Hour Show and Modupe had gone up stage with high hopes of clinching the winning prize money, apparently trusting in her dancing skills. In addition to bags of goodies, the organisers had earmarked a part of its N1.5million winning money of the day for the best child dancer, and Modupe, from the audience position danced really well and deserved to go all the way. She was therefore surprised when a larger chunk of the audience voted her to go off the stage with the elimination slang ‘waka’ (meaning walk away).
From the audience’s point of view, which is about forty meters from the elevated stage, where the kids danced, Modupe appeared a much bigger girl, giving the impression that she shouldn’t even be competing with the kids in the first place. And that, more than her performance on stage, determined the audience’s decision to eliminate her from the competition.
On descending the stage and approaching her father at a section of the audience’s section however, a good number of the crowd suddenly discovered that they had misjudged Modupe’s age and indeed been unfair to the young girl. “Oh she’s actually a little girl,” somebody whispered.”
“And we thought she is too old,” another replied; while one who couldn’t care less retorted, “why she self go fat like old mama.”
Somehow, they all agreed, on seeing her up-close, that they had committed a grave error of judgment, which unfortunately, they could not reverse
Overwhelmed, Modupe snuggled close to her dad while complaining tearfully about how, “they told me to go away… and I was dancing well daddy.”
Khafilat’s story is not much different. But while information about Modupe’s background and history may not be known; that of events leading to Khafilat’s obesity problem is available, as told by a close family member. Born into a nouveau riche Lagos middle-class family, Khafilat’s mother took delight in feeding her with meals from fast food joints, even though she was literally a fulltime housewife and could have nurtured her with healthy home-made meals. To her, it was a thing of pride, and it was actually common to hear her flaunt the fact that “My daughter doesn’t eat anything cooked at home,” and “Oh she has to eat meat pie and a cup of ice cream before going to sleep, otherwise….”
Her father, a top manager at a defunct government parastatal, wasn’t left out, as he always branched at a fast food eatery to do mother and daughter’s bidding.
Gradually, in their ignorance, they fed little Khafilat with junk, until she began to blow up. Unwittingly, they also reveled in her chubbiness. She was the teddy of the family and they were simply loving it. Somehow, it never occurred to them what harm they were doing to the little girl. By the time Khafilat was clocked 9, she already looked like a 16-year old, big and over-blown. Suddenly, both parents realised the problem on their hands, but alas, it seemed a bit too late, as they all (Kafilat inclusive) lost control of her body. The fact that she inherited her father’s height also means that she now looks quite imposing. Now at 14, the poor girl could pass easily for a 30-year-old woman, looking fat and matronly. And wait for this: men old enough to be her father now make passes at her, apparently misjudging her age.
To make matters worse, she is also facing issues of self esteem, as she gets jibes such as ‘orobo, mummy and fatty,’ from friends and strangers, who find her size amusing. The embarrassment has also got to a stage where she hardly goes out, except to school.
Her helpless mother now complains of her increasing recluse lifestyle, trying hard to get her to ignore the negative remarks on her size. On her part, Khafilat is trying hard to avoid those foods she has been used to, to no avail.
And the question persists: how does she lose her excess weight?
Little Modupe and Khafilat’s stories are just two of the thousands unpalatable experiences children suffering from obesity and overweight problems are facing in our world.
Unfortunately however, these may just be tips out of the iceberg, considering the health complications they might be facing in the future, if their conditions are not quickly reversed.
Mrs. Iwalola Akin Jimoh, nutritionist and member of the Ovie Brume Foundation explains that obesity is actually a situation that predisposes somebody to certain other conditions and diseases. “For example,” she said, “if you are obese, you’re susceptible to high blood pressure, hypertension, cardiac diseases, and diabetes mellitus, particularly in adults.”
She disagrees with opinions in some quarters that obesity in itself is a disease, saying it is “more like a dangerous condition that predisposes one to other diseases.”
And while current statistics may be hard to come by, one will most certainly find pockets of children with obesity problems in the exclusive private schools across the country, somehow suggesting that it is a condition preponderant amongst the rich and upper-class. Cursory investigations however suggest that there are cases in public schools and even amongst the lower class, indicating that it cuts across all economic strata.
A study conducted by the Paediatric and Child Health department of the Igbinedion University, Edo State, at the turn of this decade revealed that Nigeria has a prevalence of 18% obese cases among school age children. This of course indicates that a sizable number of the country’s emerging youth might be facing challenges of obesity and its attending health conditions in the near future.
It also carpets the opinion in some quarters that the problem has not yet reached an alarming rate.
Akin-Jimoh lends her voice to this controversy, when she said “to say that it is not yet at an alarming rate is something I won’t agree with. It’s quite alarming at this point in time.”
Even though statistics may be scanty, she says the problem cuts across board and requires urgent attention.
She revealed that the problem of obesity actually takes roots from the way mothers feed their infant, when the child is born, right through the type of diet that the child is weaned on. She also said that the reason it might be more preponderant amongst children of the upper class may not be unconnected with their parents’ busy schedule, especially in a city like Lagos.
“For this reason, they don’t pay extra attention to diet and you find that their kids in the morning take cereal, sausage and chips, which is very high in calories; in the afternoon, they go for rice and maybe a quarter of a chicken, which again is way too much. And in the evening, they go for maybe white bread, egg and sausage. So the diet that a lot of kids in the upper-class take might actually contain a lot of fat, a lot of sugar and very high carbohydrate diet. Sometimes it’s also very high in protein, way beyond what a child needs; and when you take too much carbohydrate and protein, it is converted and stored under your skin.”
To be on the safe side, she advised that once your diet provides enough for you to meet your energy needs, then it is excellent; as against consuming way more than you need and having it work against you.
While raising an alarm over the growing rate of obesity amongst young children at the 2nd Federation of African Nutrition Societies (FANUS) meeting held in collaboration with the Nutrition Society of Nigeria and other stakeholders a few years back, Dr Maria Pilar Riobo Servan, Vice President of the Society of Endocrinology, Nutrition & Diabetes in Madrid, Spain, said changing food habits, declining physical activities in the home and in schools, increasing sedentary habits- where children sit for long periods watching TV or playing video games, and changing physical environment are some of the major factors parents need to address. Except something urgent is done to address this growing trend, Servan warned that the situation will attain a pandemic proportion, leading to the continent’s first generation of less healthy adults with shorter life expectancy than their parents.
For the records, an adult with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese. Extreme obesity, also called severe obesity or morbid obesity, occurs with a BMI of 40 or more. With morbid obesity, one is especially likely to have serious health problems.
Servan also stated expressly that the biological cause of obesity is simply “an imbalance between the number of calories in and the number of calories out. In other words, consistently eating more calories than you burn off could make you obese.”
Once regarded as a problem of economically advanced countries of the world, the condition seems to be taking roots in Africa. A conservative figure actually suggests that 15 million Nigerians are obese, while two to three times more people are probably overweight.
