Adults, as a rule, carefully watch their weight, but at the same time they look at the excess weight of children through their fingers - after all, the cheeky fagots with wrinkles are so touching. Therefore, parents do not see any cause for concern and continue to offer their beloved children a lot of goodies and sweetness. And then they wonder why children have problems in physical education classes, where they are not able to fulfill simple standards. Although, often, the children's body copes with weight problems much more successfully than an adult and a very well-fed baby can be quite active. Problems can begin later, with active growth and restructuring of the body, when, in addition to the already existing one, additional burden will fall on it and this will result in diseases. By the way, the body weight deficit in children is no less dangerous, this phenomenon is more common in low-income families, where parents are not able to provide the child with adequate nutrition. In order not to provoke health problems associated with weight, you need to carefully monitor it, starting with childhood.
Domestic pediatricians determine the compliance of the weight of the baby with norms, comparing it with the average indicators of the weight of children at this age. But this technique has long been obsolete, because such a comparison is not tied to the growth of the child and therefore can not be reliable. More indicative is the body mass index for children, determining which, it is possible to say as precisely as possible, whether the weight of the child is within the limits of the norms permissible for a given age.
How to determine BMI for children?
The formula for determining the body mass index for children is as follows: the child's weight in kilograms is divided by the square of the child's growth in meters. Let's give an example of calculation: the child is 2 years old, his height is 92 cm, weight is 15 kg. BMI = 15 / 0.92 2 = 17.72.
Then substitute the value in the table of the child's body weight: on the axis of age we find the mark of 2 years, on the index axis we also find the corresponding value and look for their intersection on the plane. The table plane is divided into 4 zones: below the norm, healthy weight, above the norm, obesity. There are separate tables for girls and boys, which are designed for children and adolescents from 2 to 20 years.
The task of parents is to measure the weight and height of the child every six months, to note the values in the table of the body weight norm in children and to ensure that the weight is kept in the healthy zone. In addition, you can build a schedule that will show the possible trends for obesity or underweight.
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