Obviously children suffer from poor nutrition too, they become obese, they can be malnourished and what not.
And yet to be it looks like often they are more “resistant” to bed food. They eat too much in one sitting? No stomach ache. They eat horribly for months? Blood test would still give decent results. They don’t eat vegetables and fruits? Still no problems pooing.
What makes them so flexible and robust in their diet?
In: Biology
Problems related to poor diet take years to develop.
That said, a fifth of US children are obese.
[Childhood Obesity Facts | Overweight & Obesity | CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html)
1. They are growing. This requires energy so more food is turned into growth than fat.
2. They are more active than adults. Apparently most adults over age 30 will never sprint again in their lives
They get exercise
you can get away with a lot of ‘bad’ food if your daily calorie intake is still same/less than you’re burning
then again there are plenty of children who are obese too so they’re far from immune
Metabolic disease takes time, although we’re now seeing kids with diabetes and non alcoholic fatty liver so that shows where our diet is.
Factor in genetics and lack of exercise, and you’ll see it’ll only get worse.
The main issues come from poor nutrition (real food) and overloading the body with sugar / alcohol.
No fibre for example means a poor gut microbiome health which is 70% of our immune, metabolism and mood. Your guard is down and you’re susceptible to disease but you’re also young and strong.
No healthy fats means less vitamins absorbed – deficiency.
I mention fibre and fats because that’s what’s mostly lacking from modern diets.
But disease takes time. It might only become a serious problem in the 30s / 40s.
This is the problem of judging health based on our appearance (e.g. overweight). We have no idea what’s happening inside.
The main reason is that they are actively growing… So the nutrients gets used in different ways….
But yea, I don’t know if you’ve noticed…. Kids today are all built like beach balls.
I bet like 50% of them are clinically obese… And 40% more of them are over weight.
Take a walk around Walmart tonight… The kids are bigger around than they are tall.
Calories In > Calories Out
Calories out has a bunch of factors, children especially are growing, uses calories, they tend to be more active, uses calories, they’re forced to be active for schooling (physical education etc). It’s also worth noting that as an ex teacher, a lot of kids with bad eating habits/bad sleeping schedules were the kids who were ill the most. A cold there, falling asleep in class, complaining about insomnia (yeah it’s totally not the redbull you drank at 9pm).
Bodies pretty resilient, the more extended punishment the worse the results, and kids do face consequences for bad habits.
In my experience, I wasn’t healthy but I was assumed to be. I held it together well enough until adulthood, when all the safety nets of childhood were removed, and then my state of poor health became much more obvious. Many chronically ill folks I know had a similar experience of assumed health in childhood and more obvious poor health after the supports of childhood end. Childrens’ first hand experiences are not generally taken into account when recording this kind of information, it is generally the parents’/adult observations.
So I have doubts about the basis of your question. Perhaps children do SEEM well enough, but children don’t know anything other than their own experience and often don’t realize something is wrong in their body bc whatever they experience is their own normal. Parents have a responsibility to check in with their kids to ensure they are well, but from what I have observed most parents are more interested in reassuring themselves their children are fine and healthy than investigating issues that, while minor in childhood, may mess up their child’s adult life if left unaddressed. Not to mention how shite doctors often are at recognizing illness developing in young people, so. I’d need a lot of hard data we can’t get to believe in the basis for this query.
1. They’re growing and need a lot of energy.
2. They absolutely get an upset stomach from eating too much/the wrong things. Vomiting, diarrhea, “tummy ache”…these things all happen frequently
3. Childhood obesity rates and Type 2 diabetes rates are at an all time high
So, by and large, they can get away with it because they are growing and active. But only to a limit.
They don’t and can’t, humans regardless of age will become unwell and or unfit if they eat accordingly. Children often move more and can only get extensive health testing at the convenience of their guardian so they appear healthier
Lots ( not all ) of poor nutrition symptoms take years to develop. And lots of modern food is fortified against the major nutritional deficits that affect people quickly. Eg milk has vitamin D, cereal has iron , kids drinks have added vitamin C.
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