Salima is a bit lost. The 32-year-old arrived from Senegal four months ago. In the meantime, she swelled eight kilos. “There, I was in charge of logistics, I was on the move! Here I don’t work yet, so I’m alone at home and I eat anything“, she says, annoyed, to Audrey Boyer, dietician at the PMI (maternal and child protection) of the Flamingos (14th). There is a double challenge here: the well-being of Salima of course, but also and especially that of the baby she says she wants to conceive very soon with her companion. “We do early prevention because several members of her family have diabetes and she has gained a lot of weight“, details the specialist. Two of the determining factors most involved in childhood obesity. “My husband likes to eat meat, chicken, fries too much, he doesn’t want me to make salad in the evening and then I admit that I snack on a lot of cakes“, admits Salima.”Well we are going to invite him to a consultation also to do a little health education, because you will be the examples of your child.“, slips the dietician. Salima leaves with several recommendations in order to rebalance her diet and an appointment for in 15 days. In-depth work has been launched so that her child does not come to feed already dizzying figures in a few years. ..
“My son, he drinks ice tea for breakfast”
To the point that the State, via Social Security, launched this week the generalization of monitoring for children, from 3 to 12 years old, at risk or in a situation of overweight. In this age group, 17% are above the curves, including 4% obese. “It has become a major public health problem“, notes the Health Insurance. At the same time, the Commissariat for the fight against poverty with the prefect of the Paca region and the ARS Paca will oversee a vast, more local offensive, and targeted at 0-6 year olds, in which the Marseille City Hall has decided to rush in.
Because if the problem is not new, there is more urgency than ever, especially in working-class neighborhoods where, according to recent studies, the risk for a 3-4 year old child to be overweight, even obese, is almost multiplied by 5 compared to wealthier families. “We accompany parents who encounter problems with breastfeeding, food diversification, in particular some who leave a milk diet in place for years, as one would give a mobile phone to a child so as not to have to play with him, details Doctor Florence Théron, responsible for the PMI in the 14th, 15th and 16 arrondissements. It also happens that they do not cook enough, that they find it difficult to impose a balanced menu and that they make each child what he wants to eat. We sometimes also have to manage cultural reflexes for which the roundness of a child means that he eats well and therefore that he is in good health, and some parents are victims of social pressure. And there is obviously the precariousness of certain families for whom a balanced diet is not a priority as they have problems to settle, moreover many parents do not return to the follow-up appointments that we give them. (…) On the other hand, it is enough to post at the exit of the schools, where parents arrive at 11:20 a.m. with a pain au chocolat, or with crisps and a soda at 4:20 p.m., to measure the extent of the problem.
Not far away, in the heart of the city of Busserine, Sarah admits: “If I pick up my daughter at the end of class without a slice of pizza, she has a fit. The problem is Sodexo food, she comes home hungry, she doesn’t eat anything in the canteen, it’s disgusting”. At 11, the young girl weighs 68 kg for 1m57. “She started to put on weight around 5-6 years old, when she returned to school”, recalls his mother. Lately, her daughter has taken her food back into her own hands. “It’s hard because she’s been teased a lot for years, she no longer dares to go to the swimming pool or to a sports club, so it’s a vicious circle. But already, she’s starting to eat vegetables, and her sister coaches her. She, too, had put on a lot of weight and there, she has refined herself, it gives hope to her youngest…”
Cropping operation also in Ahmet’s family. This mother of Turkish origin, in the middle of a literacy class at the Schebba association, recounts this daily struggle: “The doctor told my 10-year-old son he needed to lose 10 pounds. He’s always hungry and he loves Nutella and Oasis. So I signed him up for basketball, we calmed down the fries, we avoid Macdo where we went once a week, I cook more vegetables: he has already lost 3 kilos. Hava, another mum, doesn’t seem so distraught for her 4-year-old boy: “He drinks ice tea all day, even for breakfast”she let go without flinching. “But it’s only sugar! arises Nina, the president of this neighborhood women’s association. I think it’s time to do a nutrition workshop…”
And maybe also a workshop on the abuse of screens. “I’m afraid of dating and the risks in the neighborhood so my children, after school, they come home and they don’t go out anymore… When he arrives at home, my husband gives the phone to the little one for 1h30”, continues Hava. Feeling of insecurity, physical inactivity, obesity… Farouk, specialist educator in the city of Solidarity (15th) for Addap 13, notes the consequences: “Out of the sixty kids aged 8 to 14 that I am, about fifteen are overweight. As soon as we play sports or take a good walk in the creeks, they lack breath, it’s obvioushe cursed. Their parents are the Uber eat generation, they get deliveries all the time so the whole family eats this junk food.
In 2021-2022 alone, 2,000 young people from Marseille in the middle section (between 3 and a half and 4 and a half years old), overweight or obese, or detected at risk, were referred by the PMI to a professional, with in the viewfinder the rebound of early adiposity: “This moment when a child has a sudden rise in his BMI (Body Mass Index) curve, the sooner it happens the more it is a harbinger of lifelong obesity”warns Doctor Florence Théron of the PMI, where parent education is THE priority. “We realized that children do not know the name of certain vegetablessmiled yellow his colleague Audrey Boyer. There are even those who think that the fish swims in the water with the breadcrumbs…”