RIYADH: Children usually spend their time in the summer playing and having fun, but at the same time they can also develop unhealthy eating habits
In Saudi Arabia it has been reported by local studies that two thirds of women are either overweight or obese. The same statistics suggest that most of the causes revolve around bad eating habits, especially during long vacations.
Najwa Muhammed has struggled to provide her two children with healthy nutrition. She says that it is not only a wrong choice of food that causes people to be overweight.
“It is a combination of both bad food habits and lack of exercise,” Najwa said. “When it comes to children, the concept of going outing means a meal in a restaurant, ice cream, milk shake and chips. Even for ladies the best outing is shopping or meeting friends in a café and drinking different types of coffee with full-fat milk. Shopping malls lately are full of ‘eating challenges’, after shopping for two or three hours, no doubt that one will need something to drink or eat. Food courts make it easy for family members to sit together outside and have a meal, but I always question how healthy these meals are!”
Najwa also said she has noticed her children’s carelessness about what they eat increases during summer, because they stay home and up all night.
Batoul Qabalan, a 24-year-old recent college graduate, goes to the gym whenever possible to bring down her weight. “People do not get obese in one day,” said Qabalan. “It takes time to build a body full of fat. However, many people think that the moment they join the gym and start working out they will start to be in shape. I think the image of a beautiful body has been twisted. Many women just want to be identical copies of each other.”
Dr. Amal Abu Shiekha, a dietitian in Obagi Center, said good nutrition is a basic element for a healthy life. She pointed out that eating healthy is the best way to be healthy.
“Some of the common mistakes people do are adopting the diet of one big meal every day,” said Shiekha. “A human body is created to consume three meals a day, in which 10 percent of each meal is burned while digesting the same meal. Eating one meal a day urges the body to store 15 grams of fat inside the body, which makes it hard to lose weight for many people and make others gain more weight.” One of the fundamental aspects of a healthy diet is to avoid foods heavy in oils, sugars or fats. A good night’s sleeps is also important for weight loss.
“Staying up all night is also a threat for skin health, body and mind. People are biologically designed to sleep at night and wake up and burn fats during the day,” Abu Shiekha said.
“Stress is among the most influential factors that could slowly lead to obesity. Also being obsessed about weight loss is not a healthy motivation to lose weight because it slowly leads to more complicated psychological issues.”
Abu Shiekha added that being concerned about the shape of the body only makes a lot of girls and women go on diets that are not suitable to their metabolisms and can even pose health risks.
“In short, people should eat healthy and love their bodies with its flaws,” she added. “It is more important to be healthy than to just be skinny.”
