How to manage obesity in girls at early age

Obesity – the most common culprit of early puberty in girls

The average age of puberty for girls in most ethnicities is between 12 to 15 years. However, over time it has been noticed that the signs of puberty are now seen as early as just 9- 10 years of age. The most common signs of puberty in girls are development of breasts, menstruation, genital hair etc. The sign of early puberty is known as precocious puberty.

Shockingly, about 80% of the cases report developing of the breasts starts even before completion of 9 to 10 years of age and menstruation before completion of 12 years of age. While there are many factors that contribute to early puberty, however obesity is now found to be strongly link with this phenomenon.

Consider this: If you are a parent of an overweight girl (about 22 pounds over the normal limit for age and height), your child has an 80% chance of reaching puberty early. This is because the extra pounds directly influence and alter the sex hormone levels in the body and initiate early signs of puberty.

While puberty in itself is not at all a bad thing, early puberty can be a problem because your child is not mature enough- mentally and psychologically to handle the changes occurring in the body. And while adults understand this is a completely natural process, for your young girl this may be an emotional turmoil. All the changes can confuse and burden them and leave them with a lot of unanswered questions – why, how, when??

The best way you can help your child is by supporting them through this time. Explain to them and help them understand about all the biological changes their bodies will experience in forthcoming years, months and days. If needed you can also take professional help from a child psychologist and counsel.  There is a possibility that your child may experience low self-esteem, heightened sense of self-consciousness, strong peer pressure and feeling ‘abnormal’ or ‘different’ from others as adolescence is the time when youngsters want to ‘belong’ to their reference and peer groups. They want to act and behave similar to their friends but feeling alienated at such crucial stage may lead to long term social adjustment issues.

Hence, your child needs a lot of support, strong family guidance and bonding, close friends, developmental activities to cope with changes of puberty and manage the hormonal chaos in their body.

Managing the problem with Homeopathy

There are two ways to manage any problem always – one, prevent it; two, solve it wisely.

Prevention should always be the first choice as obesity is harmful in many ways. Maintaining the right body weight is not an option, it is necessary. Good diet, adequate exercise and a balanced lifestyle needs to be ingrained in the children from the very beginning.

Still, if it is not happening, better seek medical help to avoid further complications. Homeopathy effectively treats female obesity in many ways. Homeopathic medicines safely, and without any side-effects, increase the metabolism, which is, otherwise, slow due to obesity. Our doctors assess the patients’ lifestyle, temperament, behaviour, eating habits and any associated complaints that may arise due to obesity. In addition to being safe and effective, Homeopathy follows an individualized approach combined with counseling for these cases.

Homeopathy treats every woman individually, which means in homeopathy no two women would be suggested to take the same medication. We understand that every woman even with a same medical disorder has a specific set of problems which need an individualistic approach.

Homeopathy offers effective treatment for ailments like PCOD, irregular menstrual periods, thyroid, and others, which most often are the cause of obesity. Homeopathic remedies work on correcting the hormonal imbalance that is the root cause of most of the conditions concerning women. Once the hormonal balance is achieved, most of the problems get resolved. Our medicines do not have any side-effects, which are generally observed in conventional treatment like hormone therapy for example.

Plus, stress management, weight control, corrective lifestyle habits is also as much a part of homeopathic treatment along with the medicines. We take care of overall health of a woman who seeks treatment.