Heart disease is one condition that parents should help their children ward off. Especially because it is like a thief of the night that comes when no one expects.
Indeed, the issues of the heart are pivotal in life and the most important of all is keeping the heart itself healthy.
Sadly, an adult could come down with a heart disease that had been there from childhood.
As a result, the burden falls on parents to help their children stay free from this silent killer.
A family physician, Dr. Ademola Orolu of Nathaniel Consulting, gave an insight into how parents can help their children keep heart disease away.
1. Primordial Prevention Of Heart Disease
Fortunately, with primordial prevention, parents could get it right from the beginning.
To begin, Dr. Orolu says it should start from the beginning of life.
He recommends that a mother should attend antenatal programme to ensure that the child is well taken care of.
In the antenatal programme a pregnant woman undergoes screening for different diseases and infection.
These screenings ensure that the mother and the child are safe.
According to him, if a mother has some infections it could affect the heart of the child. This he says is congenital heart problem.
“Such children may be born with heart problems. Some may cup up with problem immediately, others, later in life,” he explained.
2. Expose Children To Healthy Environment
Also, the environment that you bring a child up matters. Toxins could also affect the heart health of a child, but ensuring that a child does not inhale toxin is important in this case.
A study says chemicals like persistent organic pollutants (POPs); the plastic exudates bisphenol A and phthalates; low molecular weight hydrocarbons (LMWHCs); and poly nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) could trigger heart diseases (1).
What kind of plastic plates do you prepare your child’s food with? Check the kind of cream the child uses. What kind of food does your child eat?
These things play a role in the burden their heart and other organs bear.
Parents should watch out for chemicals in soap and other items.
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Basically, you can help guard against heart disease by ensuring that your child(ren) is not exposed to these toxins.
3. Give Your Child Healthy Diet
This is one area that parents are missing it. They expose their children to so much unhealthy foods.
Processed meals are full of additives that your body does not understand. It is worse for children whose organs are still very tender.
Ensure that they eat less of processed foods.
According to Dr. Orolu, it is important that you give your children natural foods.
“Less of can foods. Eat foods in their natural state. Less of refrigeration and also eat vegetables.
Most importantly, junks are more of what make people add weight. Also, they contain trans fat which sneaks into the blood stream (2).
4. Expose You Child To Necessary Screening Exercises
One of the habits you should make your child cultivate is regular medical checkup.
The doctor says this will help them stay safe from chronic diseases.
Remember that early detection helps in the treatment of many chronic diseases.
Indeed, it is recommended that every adult should go for screening for diabetes, hypertension, high blood fat (cholesterol) and others.
5. Help Them Create A Moderate Exercise Routine
Also, exposing the child to moderate exercise even from early age will help the child create a routine that will come handy later in life.
Do you know that most adults do not exercise today because the routine was not formed at early age?
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Most importantly, exercise helps expel toxins from the body and keep the arteries free from fat particles.
Sadly most parents just feel that because a children run around, they dos not need to exercise.
Running around does not help a child form a routine. But setting out time to exercise will help form the routine.
Please, take care of your child’s heart from the beginning of life for it is the things you teach that the child will grow with.