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The Increasing Childhood Obesity in America The pervasiveness of child obesity in America has become an epidemic that has been impacting the quality of life lead by the children in our nation. Currently, an estimated 15 percent of children and adolescents are overweight and of this number, 30. 5 percent are obese or as the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prefers to refer to as overweight. The reasons attributed by different people for the widespread and rampant pediatric obesity range from several factors such as socioeconomic status, environmental factors, heredity, lack of nutrition, eating habits, physical activity, inactivity and sedentary behavior, medical conditions, including underlying genetic, hormonal (hypothyroidism, thyroid disease) and metabolic syndromes or conditions (Obesity in America).
The situation has grown and blown into this almost unmanageable proportion due to children not knowing how bad this is for them and adults not realizing enormity of their contribution to the prevalence of it until it finally caught up with them. According to studies, approximately 25 to 30 percent of adult obesity cases begin with childhood obesity. A history of being overweight in childhood that persists into adulthood is always associated with more severe complications of obesity later in life. The steadily increasing occurrence of childhood obesity must be given preferential attention by all because the health of todays youth will greatly impact the potentials of these people and thus, the stability of our future as a nation. Obesity seems to be a very easy problem -- - being fat is not the end of the world yet unknown to many it is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Being overweight will not kill you but the consequences and the effects of it on your body will.
But unlike most fatal diseases, the condition is something that is preventable rather than curable which makes it easy to conquer. With the help and cooperation of all people, (both government and non-government institutions) whether they have a direct or indirect role and responsibility to the health of the nation, there are several ways and means which can be done to eradicate this simple yet very fatal condition. We can sum up the different ways and means to control, reduce and possibly eliminate childhood obesity in America in three key factors: a) healthier eating habits; b) increased physical (supervised) activity and; c) improved health and nutritional literacy. The first two directly concern and involve the children themselves while the last one is basically for the parents. The fundamental reason why children are overweight is the fact that many of them are eating too much and moving too little. The amount of food basically given to children to consume is not proportionate to the activities they usually indulged in -- - watching television and playing spellbinding computer / video games.
In some cases, putting a lid to the cookie jar and turning off the television will work but not for long. But both remedies will just be scraping off the superficial and apparent crisis, what we need is a stable, constant and continual approach which will change the pattern of thinking of both adults and children about health and nutrition. It is important for the adults to guide the children because the choices that children make now, the behaviors they learn now, will last a lifetime. Works Cited Cheung, Lilian W. Y.
and Julius B. Richmond. Child Health, Nutrition, and Physical Activity. Human Kinetics: Champaign, 1995. Dalton, Sharon. Overweight Children.
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Obesity in America. Childhood overweight. 30 October 2007. < web >. Pitman, Teresa, and Miriam Kaufman. The Overweight Child. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1994.
Smith, Clinton J. Understanding Childhood Obesity. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. Sturm R. Childhood obesity what we can learn from existing data on societal trends, part 1 and 2. Prev Chronic Dis [serial online] January 2005. 30 October 2007. < web >.
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Research essay sample on The Increasing Childhood Obesity In America
