Giving Compass' Take:

· News Deeply reports Argentina's attempts to reduce childhood obesity rates despite facing industry objections. With ambitious ideas to reduce overweight and obesity, advocates are promoting legislation to solidify the plan. 

· How can parents of obese children address this issue? What programs can governments implement to help tackle childhood obesity? 

· Scotland is also addressing childhood obesity through school meals.

María was diagnosed as obese when she was five years old. The doctor warned her parents that if her eating habits didn’t change, the little girl was at risk of diabetes and, later in life, of heart disease.

“Every day after school I would go by the kiosk and get her whatever she wanted,” said María’s mother, who asked that her daughter’s name be changed to protect her identity. “Then, when her father came home after work, he would bring her a bag full of sweets. She would fill herself up with all those snacks and skip dinner. We didn’t realize it was a problem until she was diagnosed.”

María is one of the 350,000 children in Argentina estimated to be suffering from overweight and obesity. At 9.9 percent, the country has the highest rate of childhood obesity in all of Latin America and the Caribbean. And according to government estimates, overweight and obesity are responsible for 44 percent of diabetes cases in the country, 23 percent of ischemic heart disease cases, and 7 to 41 percent of cancer cases.

The gravity of this issue led the Argentine government to announce a comprehensive plan in 2016 to address the growing overweight and obesity rates among the country’s youngest citizens. Taking a comprehensive approach, the government has borrowed program ideas from neighboring countries that range from better nutritional labeling to taxes on sugary beverages and other foods with limited nutritional value.

Read the full article about Argentina's plan to curb childhood obesity by Lucia He at News Deeply.