Selasa, 21 Oktober 2008

40 Per Cent Of Parents Mistaken About Children's Weight

Research from Australia suggests that more than four in ten parents don't know if their children are under or overweight and because of this they are unlikely to help their children correct their weight and the children themselves tend to under or overestimate their body size.

The study was part of doctoral research based at the University of Melbourne's School of Behavioural Science and was conducted by Dr Pene Schmidt who was recently awarded a Doctor of Psychology at the University.

One of Schmidt's key findings was that the percentage of under and overweight children in the group she studied varied depending on whether she used body mass index (BMI) or wast circumference to classify them. Using BMI resulted in more children being overweight than using waist circumference.

Other studies have looked at parents' perceptions of their children's weight but Schmidt's study is believed to be the first to use both BMI and waist circumference.

The study also found that children who were not classified as being of normal weight were more likely to under or overestimate their body size; and a small percentage of parents thought their overweight children were underweight or their underweight children were overweight.

Schmidt said that the study showed there was a need to overhaul the way children's weight is classified so as to give parents better information about what is the normal weight range for children of different age groups. She said parents were unlikely to make the right changes if they had the wrong perception about their children's weight.

For the study, Schmidt analysed survey data on over 2,100 children aged 4 to 12 living in the Australian state of Victoria. The data also included information from their parents.

In her analysis, Schmidt compared BMI and waist circumference measurements of the children (objective measures) with the parents' perceptions of whether their children were underweight, average, or overweight (subjective measures).

The analysis showed that:
43 per cent of parents of underweight children thought their children were of average weight.

49 per cent of parents of overweight children thought their children were of average weight.

Over 80 per cent of parents of average weight children correctly believed them to be of average weight.

1.4 per cent of parents of underweight children thought their children were overweight.

2.5 per cent of parents of overweight children thought their children were underweight.

Parents were more likely to think their sons were underweight and their daughters were overweight.

Parents were less likely to be correct about whether their children were underweight.

Parents of boys were less likely to be correct about whether their sons were overweight.

Twice as many parents were worried about their children being overweight compared to being underweight.

Only 40 per cent of underweight girls and 50 per cent of underweight boys were right about whether they were under, over or of average weight.
Schmidt concluded there was a need for more research to decide how to define children's weight status so this can be clearly communicated to parents and children. She said at present both parents and children were struggling to know what was the right weight.

"This study also suggests a strong social bias among both parents and children towards thinness," said Schmidt.

She said it was important to get public health messages about obesity prevention across in the right way.

"In particular we need to make sure that the focus on reducing the number of overweight children does not have the adverse impact of increasing the number of underweight children," explained Schmidt.

The press statement did not mention any plans to publish the findings

Health maintenance

Nutrition
Main article: Nutrition

The updated USDA food pyramid, published in 2005, is a general nutrition guide for recommended food consumption.Nutrition is the science that studies how what people eat affects their health and performance, such as foods or food components that cause diseases or deteriorate health (such as eating too many calories, which is a major contributing factor to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease). The field of nutrition also studies foods and dietary supplements that improve performance, promote health, and cure or prevent disease, such as eating fibrous foods to reduce the risk of colon cancer, or supplementing with vitamin C to strengthen teeth and gums and to improve the immune system.

Personal health depends partially on the social structure of one’s life. The maintenance of strong social relationships is linked to good health conditions, longevity, productivity, and a positive attitude. This is due to the fact that positive social interaction as viewed by the participant increases many chemical levels in the brain which are linked to personality and intelligence traits. Essentially this means that positive reinforcement from a third party make one more socially adept, in control, and relaxed physically and mentally, all of which are proven to effect the nervous system(UHF).


[edit] Sports nutrition
Main article: Sports nutrition
Sports nutrition focuses the link between dietary supplements and athletic performance. One goal of sports nutrition is to maintain glycogen levels and prevent glycogen depletion. Another is to optimize energy levels and muscle tone. An athlete's strategy for winning an event may include a schedule for the entire season of what to eat, when to eat it, and in what precise quantities (before, during, after, and between workouts and events). Participants in endurance sports such as the full-distance triathlon actually eat during their races. Sports nutrition works hand-in-hand with sports medicine.


[edit] Exercise
Main article: Physical exercise

A U.S. Marine emerges from the water upon completing the swimming leg of a triathlon.Exercise is the performance of movements in order to develop or maintain physical fitness and overall health. It is often directed toward also honing athletic ability or skill. Frequent and regular physical exercise is an important component in the prevention of some of the diseases of affluence such as cancer, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and back pain.

Exercises are generally grouped into three types depending on the overall effect they have on the human body:

Flexibility exercises such as stretching improve the range of motion of muscles and joints.
Aerobic exercises such as walking and running focus on increasing cardiovascular endurance and muscle density.
Anaerobic exercises such as weight training or sprinting increase muscle mass and strength.
Physical exercise is considered important for maintaining physical fitness including healthy weight; building and maintaining healthy bones, muscles, and joints; promoting physiological well-being; reducing surgical risks; and strengthening the immune system.

Proper nutrition is just as, if not more, important to health as exercise. When exercising it becomes even more important to have good diet to ensure the body has the correct ratio of macronutrients whilst providing ample micronutrients; this is to aid the body with the recovery process following strenuous exercise. When the body falls short of proper nutrition, it gets into starvation mode developed through evolution and depends onto fat content for survival. Research suggest that the production of thyroid hormones can be negatively affected by repeated bouts of dieting and calorie restriction[5]. Proper rest and recovery is also as important to health as exercise, otherwise the body exists in a permanently injured state and will not improve or adapt adequately to the exercise.

The above two factors can be compromised by psychological compulsions (eating disorders such as exercise bulimia, anorexia, and other bulimias), misinformation, a lack of organization, or a lack of motivation. These all lead to a decreased state of health.

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness can occur after any exercise, particularly if the body is in an unconditioned state relative to that exercise and the exercise involves repetitive eccentric contractions.


[edit] Hygiene
Main article: Hygiene
Hygiene is the practice of keeping the body clean to prevent infection and illness, and the avoidance of contact with infectious agents. Hygiene practices include bathing, brushing and flossing teeth, washing hands especially before eating, washing food before it is eaten, cleaning food preparation utensils and surfaces before and after preparing meals, and many others. This may help prevent infection and illness. By cleaning the body, dead skin cells are washed away with the germs, reducing their chance of entering the body.


[edit] Stress management
Main article: Stress management
Prolonged psychological stress may negatively impact health, such as by weakening the immune system. See negative effects of the fight-or-flight response. Stress management is the application of methods to either reduce stress or increase tolerance to stress. Certain nootropics do both. Exercising to improve physical fitness, especially cardiovascular fitness, boosts the immune system and increases stress tolerance. Relaxation techniques are physical methods used to relieve stress. Examples include , progressive relaxation, and fractional relaxation. Psychological methods include cognitive therapy, meditation, and positive thinking which work by reducing response to stress. Improving relevant skills and abilities builds confidence, which also reduces the stress reaction to situations where those skills are applicable. Reducing uncertainty, by increasing knowledge and experience related to stress-causing situations, has the same effect. Learning to cope with problems better, such as improving problem solving and time management skills, may also reduce stressful reaction to problems. Repeatedly facing an object of one's fears may also desensitize the fight-or-flight response with respect to that stimulus -- e.g., facing bullies may reduce fear of bullies.


[edit] Health care
Main article: Health care. See also Public health, below
Health care is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well being through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and allied health professions. According to the World Health Organization, health care embraces all the goods and services designed to promote health, including “preventive, curative and palliative interventions, whether directed to individuals or to populations”.[6] The organized provision of such services may constitute a health care system. This can include a specific governmental organization such as the National Health Service in the UK, or a cooperation across the National Health Service and Social Services as in Shared Care.


[edit] Workplace wellness programs
Main article: Workplace wellness
Workplace wellness programs are recognized by an increasingly large number of companies for their value in improving the health and well-being of their employees, and for increasing morale, loyalty, and productivity. Workplace wellness programs can include things like onsite fitness centers, health presentations, wellness newsletters, access to health coaching, tobacco cessation programs and training related to nutrition, weight and stress management. Other programs may include health risk assessments, health screenings and body mass index monitoring. Mostly overseen or not mentioned is a group of determinants of health which could be called coincidence, hazard, luck or bad luck. These factors are quite important determinants of health but difficult to calculate.


[edit] Public health
Main article: Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organised efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals." It is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis. The population in question can be as small as a handful of people or as large as all the inhabitants of several continents (for instance, in the case of a pandemic). Public health has many sub-fields, but is typically divided into the categories of epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Environmental, social and behavioral health, and occupational health, are also important fields in public health.

The focus of public health intervention is to prevent rather than treat a disease through surveillance of cases and the promotion of healthy behaviors. In addition to these activities, in many cases treating a disease can be vital to preventing it in others, such as during an outbreak of an infectious disease. Vaccination programs and distribution of condoms are examples of public health measures.


[edit] Role of science in health
Main article: Health science
Health science is the branch of science focused on health, and it includes many subdisciplines. There are two approaches to health science: the study and research of the human body and health-related issues to understand how humans (and animals) function, and the application of that knowledge to improve health and to prevent and cure diseases.


[edit] Where health knowledge comes from
Health research builds primarily on the basic sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics as well as a variety of multidisciplinary fields (for example medical sociology). Some of the other primarily research-oriented fields that make exceptionally significant contributions to health science are biochemistry, epidemiology, and genetics.


[edit] Putting health knowledge to use
Applied health sciences also endeavor to better understand health, but in addition they try to directly improve it. Some of these are: biomedical engineering, biotechnology, nursing, nutrition, pharmacology, pharmacy, public health (see below), psychology, physical therapy, and medicine. The provision of services to maintain or improve people's health is referred to as health care (see above).

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