SOUTH
Erratic diet, a rift in families, stress at schools leads to high blood pressure among children in Kerala. More than 3% children face high blood pressure while 5,000 infants out of five lakh newborns are detected with heart ailments anually, Sulfikkar Ahmed, head of the Department of Paediatric Cardiology at Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram said.
Studied have also revealed that lifestyle diseases are on the rise among adolescents in the state. It was also found that emergency cardiac surgery is performed on 1,000 babies and about 2,000 need medication, Ahmed said.
Though some amount of stress is considered to be positive, it is not a good sign that children as young as two to three years experience anxiety and stress. The situation will lead to major health issues in the future. Though stress is different from depression, infants experiencing anxiety is more prone to depression and other lifestyle diseases.
It seems the numbers keep on rising and school children experience anxiety owing to pressure from school and home. Issues between parents and lack of social life also affect the mindset of children. Kids are more dependent on adults, especially their carers, and are not mentally and emotionally developed enough to cope with changing situations. They are prey to the conditions in which they are living and do not have the freedom to escape situations, the study revealed.
The study report also said that those kids who face stress in childhood are more likely to develop lifestyle diseases.