Childhood Obesity Essay

What is making the contiguous genesis fat? safe a decade or so past the debate of puerility corpulency was not even a matter to be discussed. Our grandp arnts never even questioned the weight of their nipperren. Their children, our p argonnts, ate healthy nutritions at the family dining submit and played outside all day long, further when the subject of puerility obesity has gained quite a bit of interest since those days. With the ever so growing popularity of fast foods, the introduction of Play station and X nook games and the more(prenominal) demanding c beers of straightaways parents, the overdevelopment of both urban and suburban areas our kids are life history inactive lives and are becoming really overweight.The pestilential of childhood obesity is quickly rising in America. The reckon of children who are at one time overweight has tripled since 1980 and the prevalence of obesity in younger children has more than doubled. Overall, approximately 17% or 12. 5 million of the children in the trip up together States between the shape ups of 2 and 19 are already rotund (_C_ _enters for Disease Control and Prevention_ _, 2012_). This finding is very perturbing to many Ameri pottys and has ca ingestiond many debates on who is responsible for this rising epidemic and how tidy sum we control it.Childhood obesity is measured by the body sens index (BMI). The BMI is calculated victimization a childs bill and weight. BMI does not measure body fat directly, but it is a credible indicator of body fatness for most children. A childs weight status is determined using an get on with and sex particularised percentile for BMI rather than the normal BMI categories which are accustomd to determine an large(p) BMI. These are used be courting a childs body makeup varies as they age and also varies between boys and girls. adiposis in a child is defined as a BMI at or preceding(prenominal) the 85th percentile and lower than the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. Obesity in a child is defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. The causes of childhood obesity are multi-factorial. Obesity in children is caused by a lack of strong-arm activity, unhealthy sweep awaying habits, media and marketing campaigns, adverse family conditions, examine and the availability of technology.Most Ameri privys agree that childhood obesity is more prevailing today than ever before. If you intuitive feeling into the bedroom of an average American child you find video games, a computer, usually a television set and possibly around former(a) electronic gadgets. immediately American children have retrieve to just round anything they could ever expect. They just ask and most parents pass on buy them whatever they want. If you looked into the same childs room cardinal or forty years ago you would have probably institute baby dolls, toy trucks and probably even rough bo oks.You would have frame the neighborhood children outside play in the kickball or hide and try in the yard. Children played outside from sun up to sun down. The playing of these physical activities outside has unfortunately been replaced by the inactive high tech toys of today. The kick ball and hide and seek games of thirty years ago have now been replaced with games being played on the Play Station, Xbox or Wii. It is estimated that children in the United States are spending at least cardinal five percent of their waking hours insureing television and statistically children who watch the most hours of television have the highest incidence of obesity.If you take an separate look inside the house of 30 years ago you would find a atomic number 91 who went to work every day and a mom who watched menage to tend to the household duties and the children. With the rising cost of our day to day living expenses in America, most homes now must have both dad and mom working full time to make ends meet. Over the hold out both decades there has been an increase in the number of dual income families as more women have entered the workforce and more women become the sole follower for their single parent family. This new way of living has caused American children to immerse whatever is convenient for mom or dad to fix or for some children to eat whatever is easiest for them to fix for themselves.Constraints on time has make working parents rely more heavily on prepared, processed, and fast foods, which are generally high calorie, high fat, and low in nutritional content. commonly these easy meals come in greasy bags from fast food establishments or in plastic wrappers within a frozen cardboard box and have to be cooked in the microwave before consume. In some homes the stove never even gets warm from preparing a meal more than once a week. These easy meals are contribute to the growing epidemic of childhood obesity.Todays youth are considered the most inac tive generation in history and the marketers of fast food have taken full advantage of it. American children are exposed to some 40,000 or more food advertisements per year. (_U.S. D_ _ept. of Health & Human Services_ _, 2011_). Most of these advertisements crusade fast food. on that pointfore, the expanding fast-food industry is another cause for the rising childhood obesity epidemic. Fast food companies like McDonalds or Burger King are not only selling their food, but also have a way of marketing which is not fair to consumers. Most fast food restaurants offer a toy together with a childrens meal. normally the toy is from a popular new movie or television found so it is very appealing to children. Children are stimulated to eat junk food because they know they will be rewarded with a toy.psychological issues and stress are said to cause obesity in adults, but they both can cause obesity in children as well. some(a) children have a difficult time dealing with stress, so the y use food to comfort them when they feel unsure of things. Like adults, they too use food as a comfort when they feel, bored, anxious or angry. Children in the past did not have to worry so much about parents being divorced and remarried, mothers that worked long hours or fathers that traveled for most of the week. Todays economy has put financial strain on parents and children cannot garter but to hear and feel the results of these tough economic times. The children of this generation are all too familiar with all of these situations. Each child has to bang with different factors in their lives and they too turn to food as a solution.Our environment too has an effect on the growing number of obese children. Experts are now looking to at our environment as a cause of the rapid increase of obesity in children in the United States. In urban and suburban areas the overdeveloped environment can create obstacles for children to stay physically active. In urban areas the space for outdoor pleasure can be scarce, which foresees kids from having a protected place to play. Neighborhood crime, lack of driveway lighting and busy traffic can impede children from being equal to run and play or ride bicycles as a heart of daily exercise. In the suburban areas, the evolution of sprawl can prevent children from walking or biking and contributes to the great amount of dependence on using motor vehicles to get around. Suburban neighborhoods too lack resources for physical recreation and many suburban neighborhoods do not include sidewalks.Genetics and desoxyribonucleic acid are also contributing factors in the causes of childhood obesity. A meeting of British researchers checked the deoxyribonucleic acid of 300 children who were overweight. They looked for extra copies or deletions of DNA segments. They found evidence that a deletion of DNA may assist obesity. The deletion of chromosome 16 is thought to cause obesity in children because it removes a gene that the brain needs to respond to the appetite controlling hormone leptin. Children with a chromosome 16 deletion appear to have a very strong drive to eat. These children are very, very hungry and always want to eat. (_British Medical Association, 2005_)This very slim jeopardy may be the only cause that we cannot change. Unfortunately, some children are destined to obesity. These children are born with the genes that cause them to put on weight more easily and quicker than other children. These children end up storing the fat more easily than other children. There is not anything these children can do about their genes. Despite the strong figure out that genetics can have on the epidemic of childhood obesity, studies show that our genetic makeup has not changed dramatically over the last oppose of generations. Therefore the increases and prevalence of childhood obesity has to be mostly from other behavioral and environmental factors, not genetics.There are a number of root causes of o besity in the children of the United States. Selecting one or two main causes is next to impossible because the potential influences are multiple and intertwined. With the contributing factors of technology, family structure, advertising, stress and our physical environment we are making the next generation fat. We can make small changes that will have a large impact on the issue of childhood obesity. Parents and care drawrs can encourage children to lease healthy eating habits and be more physically active. We need to tenseness on overall good health, not necessarily a true goal weight. We should teach and model healthy and positive attitudes toward food and physical activity. We should establish daily meal and snack times, and eat together as families as much as possible.When we shop for groceries we should purchase foods that will give children a wide variety of healthful foods to choose from. We should try to project meals and serve them in sensible portions. Allowing c hildren to scoop their own food can promote them eating in unhealthy amounts. These are just a some ideas of small change that can make a extensive difference. We also need to promote exercise as much as possible. Having children walk to school when distance and safety allows is great exercise. Children should be back up to play outdoor games rather than just be allowed to sit in front of the television. There are plenty of activities that our children can do to get exercise.Remember even household chores like raking leaves or running the hoover cleaner constitute as exercise. Washing the car on a hot summer day can be fun tour they are getting exercise. Some children will jump at the chance to earn a few bucks. Children can be rewarded with a few dollars and they will never know they are being bribed into getting some exercise. Eating out is another place to be mindful of our decisions. When eating out is it important to be conscious of our food choices and try to fall out he althy eating in mind. Lots of fast food places now offer healthy alternatives. The obesity issue is prevalent in the next generation, but it is not too late for us to work together to reverse this epidemic.REFERENCESBritish Medical Association, June 2005. _Preventing Childhood Obesity._London British depository library Catalog.Centers for Disease Control, July 16, 2012, _Overweight and Obesity_.Retrieved from http//www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.htmlFord-Martin, Paula. _(2005) The Everything Parents Guide to the Overweight Child._Massachusetts Adams MediaHassink, Sandra G, MD, FAAP. (2006) A _Parents Guide to Childhood Obesity._United States American Academy of Pediatrics.Herscher, Elaine, Woolston, Chris and Tartamella, Lisa. (2004) _Generation Extra Large._ parvenue York, New York Basic Books.Ludwig, David, MD, Ph.D. (2007) _Ending the Food Fight._New York Houghton Mifflin Co.Neumark-Sztainer, Dianne, Ph.D. (2005) Im Like, So FatNew York The Guilford PressU.S. discussion sect ion of Health and Human Services, April 19, 2011, _Childhood Obesity._Retrieved from http//www.hhs.gov