"Yes, we can say that childhood obesity is the ´other´ pandemic of the 21st century! Over the last twenty years it has been repeated countless times that childhood obesity is an epidemic. In fact, we know that the life expectancy of the next generation will be shorter than ours, largely due to overweight and obesity.”

This is the blunt response of Idioa Labayen, senior lecturer at the University of Health Sciences at the University of Navarra, when asked the magic question by The Conversation website: "Is childhood obesity the other epidemic of the 21st century?”

She is not the only one who has dared to bring these two concepts together.

"Today, obesity is considered the pandemic of the 21st century and represents one of the main public health problems.”

These are the words of Susana Monereo, endocrinologist at Ruber International Medical Centre Habana and Secretary General of the Spanish Society for the Study of Obesity.

Both statements are not to be taken lightly. According to data from the ALADINO study, a benchmark in the monitoring of childhood obesity in Spain, 23.3% of Spanish children between the ages of 6 and 9 are overweight.

Worldwide, according to the WHO, more than 340 million children and adolescents are overweight or obese.

Learning to eat well, the key to combating obesity

"In Spain, we have a very important problem; childhood obesity. Children are taught a way of understanding food that encourages the situation we have, and this has to be changed and improved," children's chef Juan Llorca, nicknamed 'the children's chef”, told TeleMadrid.

"If we want to generate good habits, we have to start at a very young age. That is why it is important to start with children", he continued.

According to Juan and other nutrition experts, one of the main keys to putting an end to the high obesity figures is to encourage children to develop good nutritional habits that they can carry on with throughout their lives. In other words: teaching them to eat well, is something that is very easy to achieve...if you know how to do it!

But what do we mean by eating well?

Eating well means eating correctly, eating a little bit of everything but in moderation, without food binges of any kind and choosing the healthiest foods to prepare healthy and nutritious dishes".

How do you get your child to eat well?

Here are some tips on how to establish a healthy relationship with food from infancy:

• Avoid using food as a reward or punishment. Forget phrases like “if you behave well, I'll buy you an ice cream” or “if you don't listen to me tonight I'll give you spinach for dinner”. Messages such as these lead to children associating spinach (or any other vegetable we put in its place) as something negative.
• Don't take restrictions to the limit: According to a study carried out by the University of Sheffield in the UK, strictly forbidding a list of foods to children is linked to obesity and eating disorders. The explanation: "Food has a reward-based addiction point: the more I am forbidden something that others enjoy, the more I crave it”, says psychologist Bárbara Zapico.
• Let children experiment with different flavours, even in small spoonfuls, so that they are all familiar with them.
• Lead by example: Children learn through imitation. If children see you and other adults eating healthy at home, they will want to eat healthy too.
• Don't force children to finish the whole plate: one of chef Juan Llorca's maxims is that educating children to finish their plate is counterproductive because, just like adults, he advocates that children should only eat what they feel like eating and when they feel like it, outside of timetables.
• Try to shop as healthily as possible and set up meal plans: It is best to buy seasonal foods and set up weekly meal plans to avoid snacking.
• According to the Spanish Association of Paediatrics, it is best if you all eat at home, at the same time, and without external distractions such as the TV or other screens.