Contents:
- Medical Video: High Cholesterol in Children
- What causes high cholesterol in children?
- How do you know your child has high cholesterol?
- What if the child has high cholesterol levels?
- 1. Pay attention to the consumption of child fat
- 2. Familiarize children to exercise every day
- 3. Pay attention to the child's weight
- 4. Change children's food into healthy food
- 5. Give your child plenty of healthy food
- 6. Read nutritional value information
Medical Video: High Cholesterol in Children
Don't think high cholesterol is a condition that can only occur in adults. Apparently, even small children can have high cholesterol. How come? This can happen due to various things. As a result, high cholesterol in children can cause children to suffer from cholesterol related diseases, such as heart disease and stroke.
What causes high cholesterol in children?
High cholesterol in children can occur due to the following three factors:
- Descent (from parents to children). In many cases, children with high cholesterol have both parents or one of their parents who also have high cholesterol levels.
- Diet or diet. Usually children most like to eat fried foods, have savory flavors, and also contain lots of fat, salt, and sugar. Frequent consumption of high-fat foods (especially saturated fats and trans fats) in large quantities can make cholesterol in the child's body accumulate, causing children to have high cholesterol.
- Obesity. Being overweight in children is caused by poor diet in children and lack of physical activity. This contributes to the risk of children having high cholesterol levels.
So, if your child has one of the three factors above, you should be more careful in giving food to your child. Try to always provide healthy and nutritious food for children and make sure children do exercise or move frequently. Too long in front of the television while snacking is a habit that is not good for children.
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Children who do a lot of activities, often eat healthy foods, do not have a family history of high cholesterol or heart disease, and are not overweight have a lower risk of having high cholesterol.
How do you know your child has high cholesterol?
To find out if your child has high cholesterol or not can be done by taking a cholesterol test. Doing a cholesterol test is very important for children, not just for adults.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all children do cholesterol tests between the ages of 9-11 years and between the ages of 17-21 years. This is especially recommended for children with:
- One or both parents of children have high cholesterol (more than 240 mg / dL)
- Family history of heart disease, especially family members who have heart disease at the age of 55 years for men or 65 years of age in women
- Being overweight or obese
- Have additional risk factors, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or smoking
After doing a cholesterol test, you can find out how much cholesterol your child has. Then you can determine which results fall into which category. According to the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), the limits of total cholesterol and bad cholesterol (LDL) for children aged 2-18 years are:
- High cholesterol, characterized by total children's cholesterol 200 mg / dL or more and children's LDL cholesterol levels of 130 mg / dL or more.
- Limitation of high cholesterol, namely the total cholesterol level of children between 170-199 mg / dL and LDL cholesterol between 110-129 mg / dL. In this range, the child must be careful because if allowed the child can have high cholesterol levels.
- Normal cholesterol characterized by total cholesterol levels of children less than 170 mg / dL and LDL cholesterol levels of children less than 110 mg / dL.
What if the child has high cholesterol levels?
Relax, high cholesterol levels in children can still be lowered. The best way to reduce a child's cholesterol level is to change the child's eating habits and get children to exercise regularly. If this method still doesn't work, maybe the child needs cholesterol-lowering drugs. But, this drug can only be given to children who are over 8 years old and with a doctor's instructions.
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Some ways you can reduce a child's cholesterol levels are:
1. Pay attention to the consumption of child fat
Give children food that contains total fat, saturated fat, and low cholesterol. Choose milk that is free or low fat to give to children. Use vegetable oil or trans fat free margarine for cooking. The following are limits on fat intake for children:
- The amount of total fat that a child must consume in a day is 30% or less of the total calories per day (45-65 grams of fat per day).
- Intake of saturated fat must be less than 10% of total calories per day. For children who fall into the high risk category, saturated fat intake must be limited to only 7% of total calories per day.
- Children's cholesterol intake must be limited to less than 300 mg per day. Meanwhile, for children who fall into the high risk category, cholesterol intake can only be as much as 200 mg per day.
- Foods that contain trans fat should be avoided as much as possible.
2. Familiarize children to exercise every day
Mild exercise every day, such as walking, cycling, running, and swimming can help reduce bad cholesterol levels and increase good cholesterol levels in children.
3. Pay attention to the child's weight
If your child's weight is in the normal range, you should continue to maintain it. Whereas, if the child's weight is excessive, try to reduce the child's weight.
4. Change children's food into healthy food
Fat is still needed by children. Not that you have to prohibit children from eating fatty foods. But, choose foods that contain healthy fats for children. You can replace foods that contain saturated fats with foods that contain unsaturated fats. This is much healthier and can meet the children's fat needs. Some examples of foods that contain unsaturated fats are avocados, nuts, fish, olive oil, and canola oil.
5. Give your child plenty of healthy food
This is so that the child gets all the nutrients he needs. Give children a variety of fruits, vegetables, and foods made from whole wheat. If you provide meat, try to give lean meat. In addition, other protein sources are fish and beans. Limit consumption of foods or drinks that contain added sugar or artificial sweeteners. Also, limit the provision of packaged foods for children.
6. Read nutritional value information
If you buy packaged foods for children, you should first read the nutritional value information in the package before buying it. From the nutritional value information table you can see how much fat is in the packaged food per serving. So, this makes it easy for you to limit consumption of child fat.
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