Introduction:
Being overweight and obese has become one of the major health concerns globally. Poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, and decreased physical activity have led to weight gain. Schools are the main components influencing a child’s nutrition and physical activity and reducing the risks of unhealthy weight gain. The World Health Organization and the U.S. government have made recommendations nationally and internationally to provide healthy nutrition and adequate physical activity among school-going children.
What Is Nutrition?
Nutrition is nourishing the body by taking in food substances and utilizing them for growth, maintenance, and repair of the body, including ingestion, digestion, absorption, and accumulation. These absorbed nutrients are stored in the body and used by every organ, tissue system, and structure cell to perform its specialized dynamic and interrelated functions.
Good nutrition improves child, infant, and maternal health. It helps nurture the immune system and reduces the risk of infections and diseases.
What Is a Diet?
A diet can be defined as the types and amounts of food eaten by an individual.
What Is a Balanced Diet?
A balanced diet helps maintain health, vitality, and general well-being. It covers all the categories of foods that provide energy, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates, and other nutrients required to maintain a healthy body. The body also stores extra nutrients to withstand short periods of deficiency. A balanced diet contains 15 to 20 % proteins, 20 to 30 % fat, and 40 to 50 % carbohydrates.
What Are Nutrients?
Nutrients are organic and inorganic complexes present in food. Nutrients have special functions in the body. They are macronutrients and micronutrients.
Macronutrients - They form the central part of the food.
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Proteins.
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Fats.
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Carbohydrates.
Micronutrients - They are required in small quantities.
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Vitamins.
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Minerals.
Why Is School-Based Nutrition Important?
Good nutritious food helps better learn and maintain a healthy and active lifestyle. Children getting appropriate nutrition are more productive and creative.
Children spend six to seven hours per day at school, and proper nutrition helps them to be active, creative, and productive. Thus, school-based nutrition plays a vital role which helps in shaping and modifying an individual’s lifestyle.
Most of the learning happens at school, so learning good food habits has become a concern. Obesity, malnutrition, being overweight, and underweight are all problems observed in children. Good nutrition and developing healthy eating habits at an early age helps reduce the risk of having non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, stroke, etc.
What Is Meant by Physical Activity?
Physical activity is any physical movement such as walking, jumping, running, dancing, playing sports, or cycling. It can also be done using skills and creativity for fun and enjoyment.
Regular physical activity helps prevent diseases, like heart stroke, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and cancers; and improves body weight, mental health, and quality of life.
Being physically inactive harms the quality of life, socioeconomic development, and community well-being.
What Is School-Based Physical Activity?
School is the best place for an individual to practice everyday physical activity.
School-based physical activity helps in the proper development and learning of a child at school. It creates a positive environment and develops social and emotional learning and good communication skills (with other children, family, staff, and community).
Keeping children physically active in and after school also impacts food habits, mental health, and social development.
Recommended Activities:
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Aerobics.
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Muscle-strengthening.
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Bone-strengthening.
Benefits of Physical Activity and Nutrition:
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Physical growth and development.
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Build strong muscle and bone.
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Weight management.
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Decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety.
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It can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cancer, heart diseases, and obesity.
How Can Physical Activity Affect Education or Academics?
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Better grades.
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Good attendance.
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Behavior development in regards to classroom, task, communication.
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Cognitive developments - memory, concentration.
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Fitness.
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Self-confidence.
What Are the Markers of a Healthy Child?
A child’s overall health or an individual is estimated using BMI (body mass index), which is determined by chronological age and sex based on percentile norms.
BMI indicates malnutrition, excessive body mass, and obesity levels.
BMI = Weight(kg)/{Height(m)}^2.
*BMI is only for assessment and not to diagnose any disease or condition.
Causes of Inactive Physical Activity:
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Energy imbalance: spending less energy than obtained through diet.
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Obese or overweight
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Sedentary lifestyle.
What Is Malnutrition?
It is a pathological state resulting from a relative or absolute deficiency or excess of one or more essential nutrients. It can be undernutrition and overnutrition.
Undernutrition: It is brought on by the deficiency of nutrients and can be seen in:
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Poor or low-income communities or developing countries due to fewer resources.
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Children as they need proper nutrition to grow and develop.
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Chronically ill.
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Elderly, due to health deterioration and loss of appetite.
Signs and Symptoms:
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Low body weight.
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Stunted growth.
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Weakness and fatigue.
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Irritability.
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Dry skin, rashes.
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Hair - dry, thin, and pigment loss.
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Low BP and heart rate.
Overnutrition: Caused by excessive intake of nutrients and is visible in:
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Poor or low-income communities in developed countries as they get easy access to fast foods which are non-nutritious but high in calories.
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Sedentary - In people with desk jobs, family obligations, and social and health factors where people are not moving or going out, leading to being overweight.
Signs and Symptoms:
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Obesity.
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High blood pressure.
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Heart disease.
A generic term for the pathophysiological consequences of ingesting inadequate or imbalanced nutrition (primary malnutrition) and impaired utilization of these nutrients due to underlying disease (secondary malnutrition). The consequence of this condition is underweight, overweight, obese, and physically inactive.
Conclusion:
School and childhood are important stages in an individual’s life wherein most molding, shaping, correcting, and learning occur. Schools must add physical education as a class and include aerobics, sports, etc., which can help in physical development and cognitive performance. Children should be taught to practice healthy food habits and regular physical activity of 60 minutes daily at a young age, which will carry forward into adulthood. The practice will help maintain a healthy lifestyle and reduce risks of non-communicable diseases. Balanced diet for the intake of proper nutrients is essential. Body weight can be easily managed by screening for BMI.
