News - Why are children becoming obese?

Aliona Hayrapetyan 2025-12-03 20:53:00 Why do children become overweight In Armenia, 27.7% of children have overweight, 12.6% have obesity. In 2025, for the first time globally, the number of children with overweight exceeded the number of underweight children. Armenia is not immune to this global trend: among 7–8 year olds, one in three already has overweight or obesity. The main reasons are the high availability of ultra‑processed foods, sweets, low physical activity, and advertising directed at children. Childhood obesity indicators — Armenia and the world The World Health Organization calls obesity the epidemic of the 21st century. In all countries around the world, there is an increase not only in the number of overweight adults but also in the number of children. According to a UNICEF report published on September 5, 2025, globally, for the first time the number of children with obesity exceeds the number of underweight children. Since 2000, the number of underweight children has declined from 13% to 9.2%. Meanwhile, the share of overweight children aged 5–19 has risen from 3% to 9.4%. Thus, in the last 25 years the number of overweight children has doubled, reaching 391 million. The largest increases have occurred in developing and middle‑income countries. At present, in all regions of the world, except for southern Africa and the countries of South Asia, the number of children with obesity exceeds the number with underweight. In Armenia, childhood obesity indicators are also alarming. According to the latest 2019 epidemiological study on pediatric obesity, 27.7% of Armenian children have overweight, of which 12.6% have obesity and 3.1% have severe obesity. The study examined data from 3,610 children, the majority of whom were in the 7–8 age group. In Armenia, overweight and obesity are more common in boys: about 15% of boys have obesity, about 10% of girls. The prevalence of severe obesity among boys is more than three times higher than among girls. This is a global pattern. Overweight and obesity cases vary considerably by region. Those with overweight are most common in the Tavush region, those with obesity in Yerevan, and those with severe obesity in Aragatsotn region. Overweight is least common in Gegharkunik, and obesity in Vayots Dzor. Overweight and obesity occur more often in urban areas. What is obesity Although obesity is a multifactorial disease, it most often results from overeating. In such cases, it is not so much the amount of food or its caloric content that matters, but how much energy a person expends relative to what they consume and what lifestyle they lead. When calories are not expended, the body's tissues begin storing fat under the skin, in the abdominal cavity, and within muscles. Obesity is the excessive accumulation of fat in the body. In 1998, the World Health Organization recognized obesity as a chronic disease. A person’s overweight is determined by the body mass index (BMI). BMI is used to assess the level of fat accumulation. To calculate BMI, you divide a person’s body weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. If the result falls between 18.5 and 24.9, the person is considered to have normal weight. If the result is higher, the person has overweight or obesity. Waist circumference is also used to assess fat distribution. Normal waist circumference is up to 80 cm for women and up to 94 cm for men. Measuring the waist is important for understanding the type of fat distribution in the body. To assess obesity in children, in addition to BMI a percentile table is used, separate for boys and girls, and it is not calculated the same way as for adults. Obesity is classified along several criteria — by etiology, fat tissue characteristics, and fat distribution. It can be generalized (uniformly distributed) or focal. Local obesity can be central (abdominal) or peripheral. In central obesity, fat accumulates predominantly in the abdominal area. The distribution of fat can have more significant implications for disease and mortality than the amount or degree of obesity. For example, central obesity increases the risk of ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and stroke. Causes of overweight Overweight, obesity, and its severe manifestations result from several factors acting simultaneously. The main ones are overeating and other dietary habits, low physical activity, psychological factors, genetics, and advertising. Unhealthy food — accessible, tasty, but harmful In Yerevan, along the intersection of Republic Avenue and Arami Street up to School No. 71, on both sides of the street you can count more than ten shops, kiosks, and eateries selling processed, quickly prepared foods such as shawarma, pastries, cakes, and other fast foods. The fast‑food culture has entered our daily life. Just as fast-food outlets and the consumption of fast foods have become more affordable and accessible at any time, this type of food is tasty but typically has low nutritional value and is high in calories. These foods are what nutritionist Anushik Mirzoyan calls hyperpalatable: they contain flavor enhancers that strongly stimulate the brain’s pleasure response and make stopping difficult. They come in various tastes — salty, sweet, and spicy — which makes people crave more and more. Eating them together with different flavor receptors triggers a strong pleasure response. According to Mirzoyan, sweet foods cause a renewed craving for more sweets, and a strong appetite. They are mainly simple carbohydrates that sharply raise blood glucose and insulin levels; then both levels fall sharply, creating another craving. Simple carbohydrates are abundant in sugar and cereals, and in foods that contain sugar or cereals — pancakes, bread, candies, sugary drinks, etc. “Especially for children over 10, it is harder to control the desire to eat such foods. Parents can’t easily supervise older children. In younger children it is possible to restrict such foods and offer healthier options; in older children, they may go out and buy what they want,” notes the nutritionist. Arabkir Medical Center pediatrician Marina Melkumova points to the heavy work schedules of parents, which means many households do not have time to cook at home. This leads either to ordering food or buying ready-made processed foods and sweets from shops. Melkumova notes that unlike Western countries, where obesity tends to affect those with lower socioeconomic status because fast food is cheap, in Armenia the opposite is true. People with lower SES also eat fast food, but to a lesser extent; those who can afford more fast food do so. This is typical for post‑Soviet states. Satiety is influenced by the degree of stomach stretching. Fat‑rich foods, due to the presence of lipophilic aromatic molecules, are more palatable than fat‑poor ones. Skipping breakfast also affects children’s overweight. Marina Melkumova, pediatrician “If a child does not have breakfast in the morning, one or two hours later, during class or the break, they start looking for other options to eat. In schools, usually there is no breakfast offered, and no time allocated for breakfast. Therefore, breakfast gradually drops out of the children’s diet,” says Melkumova. According to her, after establishing a fixed breakfast time, another problem will arise: the quality of school meals. Bringing food from home could be a solution, but such a culture is not common in schools. “Bringing food from home is often seen as an embarrassing thing. In smaller classes this is more accepted, in larger classes it is not,” emphasizes the nutritionist. There is also a distortion in perceiving overweight. Sometimes parents may judge their child’s weight as normal even when the child is overweight. In the study, about 77% of parents believed this, while at that time about 27.7% of children were overweight. A child’s BMI is also strongly related to the family’s eating habits: for example, always having food on the table at home, late eating, consuming salty foods, or other unhealthy habits that are passed on to the child. At the same time, family affluence is not strongly linked to the child’s weight status. But a connection has been observed between a child’s BMI and the mother’s level of education: women with higher education have more children with overweight and obesity. Conversely, lean, stunted, and undernourished children are more often offspring of mothers with lower or middle education. A strong link between the mother’s weight and the child’s BMI has also been found: the majority of overweight and obese children were born to overweight or pre‑obese mothers. Low physical activity — a cause of fat accumulation The role of low physical activity has increased due to scientific and technological progress. Modern life is hard to imagine without cars, remote controls, and computers, which has led to objectively more sedentary living. Fat accumulation starts when energy intake exceeds energy expenditure. Energy expenditure rises with muscular work and higher body temperature. Today, physical labor accounts for about one percent of human activity. A 2019 study found that 66.6% of children reach school by foot and 78.2% go home from school by foot. Those who reach school by public transport or by car make up about 33.3%. By rural‑urban classification there are notable differences: in rural areas more students go to school on foot or by bicycle; in urban areas this is less common. This difference is partly explained by the fact that many rural areas are small, there are few schools, and they are usually located not far from students’ homes. More than half of students participate in sports or dance groups outside school, but the rate of participation differs greatly between urban and rural areas. In urban areas, the number of children in such groups is much higher than in rural areas. However, unlike organized physical activity, rural children are more physically active outdoors and at home, spending more time on active play and activities. According to Anushik Mirzoyan, in particular in Yerevan the number of children playing outside is currently much lower, and the children have relatively less physical activity compared to the calories they consume. “There is little outdoor space in yards, and yards are often filled with parked cars and garages. Outdoor spaces for active play are limited,” says the nutritionist. Meanwhile, the school curriculum has remained unchanged: physical education classes are two per week, a longstanding figure. This change is needed not only because of low physical activity, but also due to portions of food consumed. According to the WHO’s guidelines for physical activity, children aged 5–17 are advised to have at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day, which most children meet. Nevertheless, time spent in front of a television or screens exceeds time spent on physical activity. On weekdays boys spend an average of 2 hours, girls about 1 hour, and on weekends 3 and 2 hours respectively. In terms of sleep, more than 90% sleep at least 9 hours. Fewer than 1% sleep after midnight. Psychological factors — a cause and consequence of overweight One of the important factors in forming overweight and obesity is psychological. Eating has a stress‑reducing effect and helps relieve mental tension. Consequently, stressful situations can promote overeating. According to psychologist Marina Grigoryan, the impact of psychological factors depends on the individual child’s experiences and what problems exist and are being addressed by eating. “Food is necessary for survival, but today it often loses its real meaning. When food takes on meanings beyond sustenance, problems arise.” Grigoryan explains that we often assign other meanings to eating. For example, food is used as a reward or as a form of punishment. “Children are persuaded to do something with the promise of a reward such as pizza, burgers, or desserts. I often hear parents say their child did very well, so they baked a cake. In this way food is overvalued and given more importance than it should have.” This leads to emotional eating, where both negative and positive emotions are managed through eating. If a person is sad, in a bad mood, or has another issue, they may try to fill the gap with food, which requires the least effort to obtain. The way to avoid this is to find other joyful, rewarding activities for the child. If sadness is offset by food, the problem is not the food but the psychological state that led to it, so the underlying issue must be addressed. These are psychological factors that can occur before obesity. There are factors that emerge once the child already has obesity, mainly shaped by the culture of beauty and standards of appearance. “Our era’s beauty standard is a slim, thin body. People who do not fit this standard are more likely to be subjected to bullying, including at home,” says the psychologist. People’s judgmental responses can add extra stress for the child, potentially leading to deeper obesity, because if the child’s way of coping with stress is eating, obesity may lead to more eating. According to the psychologist, before fourth grade most children are far from these standards and are at peace with their bodies. As they grow older they begin to perceive social standards and expectations, and a desire to please others develops, leading them to compare themselves to others. “A child can develop low self‑esteem, thinking that they are not good because they are fat, or that they are not beautiful. Because they need to belong, they may do things they otherwise wouldn’t, such as sharing pencils with all classmates. If this does not work, deeper psychological problems such as self‑harm, withdrawal, isolation, and aggression can develop.” Obese children at school may have difficulty concentrating on learning because much of their energy is spent on monitoring others’ gaze and defending themselves. The solution, according to psychologist Marina Grigoryan, is to change the relationship with food without assigning other meanings or labels to it. Children — targets of advertising Children in different environments — at school, in shops, during sports activities or when watching sports programs, in front of the TV or on social networks — are exposed to the marketing of unhealthy foods and sugared beverages. Advertisements for processed and unhealthy foods, and sugary drinks, make those products more appealing to children. The methods used to reach children and teenagers have expanded beyond traditional media to social platforms, paid online advertising, websites, films, cartoons, and video games. Unlike traditional media, newer advertising methods enable precise targeting, so unhealthy food advertising reaches children and teens more effectively. Producers of processed, unhealthy foods, and sugary drinks make their products attractive through promotions, discounts, sweepstakes, packaging, placement in cartoons or films, and food‑themed apps and games. In September–November 2021 the WHO conducted a monitoring study of five Armenian TV channels — Armenia, Shant, ATV, Kentron, and First Channel (Public Television). During monitoring, there were 1,587 ads for foods and drinks, of which 65.2% promoted foods high in fat, sugar, or salt. The most advertised items were chocolate and confectionery (30.2%), followed by carbonated drinks (20.3%), and tea and coffee (16.2%), with juice at 2.1%. Thus, unhealthy food advertising was markedly higher than other types of food advertising. In Yerevan, fast‑food outlets sometimes offer special shawarma deals for children. The company Behind these types of marketing activity is Burger King Armenia, which runs sweepstakes, engages influencers, and produces video posts with children that showcase burgers, sodas, and calls to eat such foods (1, 2, 3, 4). The KFC company regularly marks Defender of Children’s Day with ads featuring children (1, 2, 3, 4). In popular cartoons, for example The Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants, the main characters sometimes all eat unhealthy foods and drink fizzy drinks. In these cartoons the characters are not typically used to promote healthy foods; rather, they promote various sweets, processed foods, and fizzy drinks. The combination and interaction of these factors lead to overweight and obesity in both adults and children. Consequences of obesity Obesity is a risk factor for the development of many diseases. Obesity increases the likelihood of type 2 diabetes fourfold, essential (high) hypertension threefold, ischemic heart disease 1.5 times, and atherosclerosis twofold. These diseases reduce quality of life and work capacity and can cause premature death. Obesity also increases the risk of colon, breast, endometrial (uterine lining), esophageal, and gallbladder cancers. Obesity also raises the probability of hormonal disorders. How to combat children’s overweight and obesity Parents and schools both play major roles in improving children’s health or preventing poor health. The WHO has developed recommendations and guidelines that parents and schools should follow to cultivate healthy eating habits in children. Parents should choose a balanced diet with priority given to fresh fruits and vegetables and limit foods high in fats and sugars, for example by modeling healthy eating and encouraging physical activity. At the same time, schools should ensure that only healthy foods are accessible to children. According to nutritionist Anushik Mirzoyan, Armenia needs to establish a link between parents, schools, and the state, because obesity is not only governed by parental influence; it requires school and state involvement to bring about changes in the field. “There is no such collaboration currently. Parents are left alone with their children who have obesity. Schools cannot influence what is served in school meals. It is the state’s duty to monitor what is given to children in kindergartens and schools, and what is sold in school shops and buffets. Parents cannot control that. It is not realistic to expect a child to walk into a shop with tempting but harmful foods and not want or buy them,” says Mirzoyan. According to her, in addition to increasing the number of PE classes, schools should regulate food in schools: there should be no snacks or sweet items sold in school areas. If schools cannot control sales, there should be a condition that unhealthy foods are not sold in or near schools. “Alongside that, there must be a viable alternative. Bakery products such as buns and pastries in school buffets should be replaced with nutritious, appealing, diverse foods. A healthy eating culture should be formed among children,” the nutritionist notes. Encouraging breakfast in all schools, setting breakfast times, and promoting healthy foods through active advertising in schools would also be a positive step. What is the government doing By order of the Minister of Health, from January 1, 2026 preschool institutions in Armenia will operate under new nutrition organization requirements. These requirements ban fried dishes (including chips and doughnuts), margarine, trans fats, spicy seasonings, sausages and cured meats, mushrooms, creamy pastries, carbonated and caffeinated drinks, chewing gum, and foods high in sugar and salt. Experts say this is a positive step but not sufficient to solve the existing problem, as the measure applies only to preschool groups, and it is not yet clear how the new measure will be implemented and what results it will yield. The Ministry of Health notes that there is no statistics on overweight and obesity prevalence. In 2026, a new pediatric obesity epidemiological surveillance study will be published in Armenia. Until then, according to UNICEF's 2025 report, if global trends in childhood obesity do not change, by 2035 the number of overweight and obese 5–19‑year‑olds will reach about 770 million, and half of the world's population will be overweight. The numbers of overweight and obesity in children are rising rapidly worldwide and in Armenia. Overweight and obesity are shaped not only by family choices or individual decisions; they are formed in a broader environment — available food sales, substandard school meals, low-activity urban environments, psychological stress, bullying, and advertising targeting children. The government’s new preschool-focused measure is a positive step, but it cannot fully change the situation without the involvement of schools, communities, and parents. If you found a mistake, you can send it to us by selecting the error and pressing CTRL+Enter.