Gyms are not the solution for childhood obesity – Fitness expert

John Onuoha, a personal fitness trainer, has urged parents to ensure that their children live active lives and eat healthy food to prevent being overweight.
Onuoha, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday in Abuja, observed that more children were being registered in gyms by their parents as a solution to their weight problems.
He said that there was an increase in the number of overweight or obese children in the country due to their sedentary lifestyle and the rise in processed food consumption.
Onuoha said: “As a fitness trainer, I am becoming worried by the number of young children that come to my gym to lose weight.
“As much as it is good for my business, I have to be honest and say this is very wrong.
“The amount of food we eat has to be equal to the amount we burn daily to maintain our weight which means we have to eat less than what we burn to achieve weight loss.
“Weight loss also has a lot to do with metabolism which refers to how fast your body can break down food consumed to produce energy therefore easily releasing the food consumed.
“People with high metabolisms lose weight faster than those with slower metabolisms.
“As an individual gets older, the metabolism slows down.
“This means children lose weight easily and faster than adults therefore, children have no business coming to exercise in a gym.
“Parents have to let their children go outside and play around.
“Children playing hide and seek, catcher, cycling around their compounds or climbing trees is enough of an exercise.
“These old fashioned ways of playing make children use up a good amount of their energy which is required to burn fat also known as burning calories.
“Calories are the amount of energy required to burn the trans-fat gotten from food.
“These days, what children do for fun is sit at home and play video games on their game console or tablets or watch movies.
“While doing this, they also indulge in snacks or other junk and processed foods known to be high in fat and other bad chemicals.
“Since they are not moving their bodies by playing around with an activity, this sedentary lifestyle causes them to gradually put on weight.
“When the parents then notice the child is obviously overweight, they then register the child in a gym.
“The resentment causes the child to gradually become comfortable with the extra weight.
“Another disadvantage of introducing children to gyms is that they grow up believing that the only way to stay fit is by using a gym.
“When they are older and don’t have access to a gym, they tend to gain weight again because they don’t know how to maintain fitness outside the four walls of a gym.
“This is the major reason why you find many adults using gyms today.
“I have a gym but most times, I train my clients outside the gym and introduce them to exercises that can be done with just their body weights and home items.
“You don’t need a gym to be fit.”