Learn the causes of childhood obesity.

So what is childhood obesity exactly? Childhood Obesity is basically an abnormal amount of body fat on a person between birth and puberty.

These days there are so many distractions, necessary and otherwise, that make it easy for us to lose track of our food intake and levels of activity. It's not hard to go a whole week without putting in dedicated time for exercise and meal planning and this extends to our children. Sometimes, as hard as it is to admit, the causes of childhood obesity can be directly linked to us as parents.

We have work, school, chores around the house, friends, family and all manner of other things that make it difficult for us to keep up. It's a struggle to concentrate on a healthy lifestyle because of all these things.

Our children typically imitate us from a young age. They pick up many of the psychological views and physical habits that we have. Because of this, we have to mindful of our own eating and physical activity habits to be role models for our children as well as monitoring their habits to find out what specific causes of childhood obesity are effecting them.

Having said all of that, let's take a look at some of the common causes of childhood obesity.

Childhood Obesity. Fast food. These two things go hand in hand.

You CAN eat fast food without being unhealthy or obese. It doesn't directly cause obesity but it doesn't help it either. I am a firm believer in most things being OK in moderation. Fast food creates a crutch for a lot of us. Because of our busy schedules, we often don't have time to cook a proper meal at home or don't feel like it after a long day at work. I completely understand that. To learn more about the real affects of fast food on our children and how we can still enjoy it while being healthy, check out our page on **Childhood Obesity and Fast Food.

As adults with children, life is very busy all the time. It's impossible to spend every minute of every day with your children, monitoring what they do. Lots of us like video games. Just like fast food, video games are not bad in and of themselves but when you combine them with everything else, they can be another contributing factor to childhood obesity.

When kids have video games to play and are allowed to play them anytime, all the time, they can develop a more sedentary lifestyle that can lead to obesity. Of course video games don't make you fat. It's what they keep you from doing and the habits they can create that makes you gain weight. Kids need strict guidelines for playing video games. Like everything else though, there is a solution to keep doing what we like to do and be healthy at the same time. Check out our page on video games and obesity.

Fast food, video games, busy parents, lack of activity at school, genetics, eating habits, sleep patterns, medications, social issues, the list goes on. There's not a lot of in your face information out there to keep us aware of all the factors that contribute to childhood obesity. If we don't educate our kids and pay attention to their lives in more detail, they will have a very high chance of suffering from these things in negative ways without even knowing how it affects them. Check out our page on **obesity risk factors to learn more. This is where we will go over the nuts and bolts of the problem.

How do you know if you or your child is obese? For adults it's pretty simple to figure out. You can use a **bmi calculator or chart to plot where you are quickly and easily. For younger children it's a little more difficult. You can use our **bmi calculator for kids which works basically the same way as it does for adults, but we've narrowed it down to ranges appropriate for children.

If you want to know the bmi formula and how to calculate bmi for anyone, it's very simple and we can show you how. Just click on the text for the respective pages.

There are many causes of childhood obesity. We hope to help you interpret what those are in you and your children's lives and teach you how to effectively counter them with Physical Activity and Healthy eating.

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