2023-04-29 12:59:03
In Italy, 42% of children aged between 5 and 9 are obese or overweight, with a result that is the worst in the European Union, where the average is 29.5%, and a potentially devastating impact on the health of the young generations. This is what emerges from an analysis by Coldiretti on data from the World Health Organization disseminated on the occasion of the Feast of food education in schools with the inauguration of the first educational farm with thousands of children from all schools in Italy at the Village farmer in Bari with the Minister for European Affairs, the South, Cohesion Policies Raffaele Fitto, the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara, the President of the Puglia Region Michele Emiliano and the mayor of Bari Antonio Decaro.
“A situation that has aggravated an alarming phenomenon – underlines Coldiretti – since the numbers show how weight problems in our country affect young people with a worrying situation even between the ages of 10 and 19 who register a percentage of obese or overweight of 34.2% compared to 24.9% of European teenagers. The forced decrease in physical activity and more time spent at home and in front of the TV in the years of the pandemic – underlines Coldiretti – they have added to the adoption of wrong patterns of consumption within families with the worrying abandonment of the principles of the Mediterranean Diet”.
Just think that well six out of 10 Italian teenagers do not eat fruit or vegetables every day, according to the Coldiretti analysis on WHO data, thus increasing the risks related to obesity and related diseases. But Italian children also play less sport than their European ‘colleagues’. Suffice it to say that 95% of Italian children do not practice an adequate level of physical activity, a number that places Italy in last place among OECD countries, according to WHO data. It is no coincidence that around 70% of young Italians spend at least two hours a day watching TV or tablets, PCs and mobile phones, second in this not comforting record only behind San Marino.
“And to worry are also in Italy – notes Coldiretti – i 2.3 million adolescents who find themselves dealing with eating disorders. These are pathologies that manifest themselves mainly from the age of 12 but which have recently come to affect minors aged 8 and over”. Precisely to help young Italians eat better and prevent pathologies in the age of development in the following one Coldiretti took the field with the food education party.
“The goal – adds Coldiretti – is to train aware consumers on the principles of healthy eating and the seasonality of products to enhance the foundations of the Mediterranean diet and rebuild the bond that unites agricultural products with the foods consumed every day “. “It is necessary to create the conditions for a qualitative growth in the nutrition of our children” declared the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini who highlighted how “the theme offood education of the new generations becomes crucial with the need to also qualify the offer of school canteens with local 0 km foods that enhance national production realities and guarantee genuineness and freshness”.
#Coldiretti #Italian #children #among #overweight #Europe