Does your child have an unhealthy diet? Their heart health may be at risk!

Zee Media Bureau

New York: As children, we have all at some point in our lives, taken a liking toward junk food and oily, fattening foods, which slowly and gradually became a lifestyle choice.

In time, we understood where we were going wrong and today, a healthier lifestyle has become a habit. This has also made people realize that allowing their children to eat a wrong diet will ultimately hamper their health in the long term.

Proving this right, a study has suggested that children who eat high-calorie, low-nutrition food and avoid eating healthy are at risk of having poor heart health.

Seven key health factors and behaviour are used to determine whether a child's cardiovascular health is ideal - not using tobacco products, maintaining a healthy body weight, getting at least 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity, eating a healthy diet as well as having healthy cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

"Engaging in these ideal health behaviours early in life can have a tremendous benefit on maintaining ideal health throughout the lifespan," said Julia Steinberger, Researcher at the University of Minnesota in the study published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

“Proactive strategies for promoting good heart health should begin at birth, yet most children do not meet the definition of ideal childhood heart health. Instead of taking a wait-and-see approach by treating disease later in adulthood, we should help children maintain the standards of ideal cardiovascular health that most children are born with,” added Steinberger.

(With IANS inputs)