Childhood
Obesity: Detection and Prevention
I remember when I was a young
child, I hadn’t the slightest clue of nutrition. My brother and I always looked
forward to the times when we got to go to grandmas and eat her cookies, which
were the best in the world to us. Now the American society is obsessed with
obesity in children. The government and a lot of other organizations have come
out with movements to keep children healthy, like The National Football
League’s Play 60. I am all for these
health kicks for the children but I believe there needs to be stronger ways of
detecting and preventing it from happening in the first place. It needs to be
detected and fixed right away.
In order for a person to understand
childhood obesity, they have to understand nutrition and health. A key factor
for keeping a child in a healthy weight range is making sure the parents or
guardians of that child know which foods are healthy and which foods are not. Also
portion control is a big element when maintain a certain weight. Two things in
my opinion ultimately determine a child obesity level. The first is what the
parents have available for food in the house, the second is how much of that
food is eaten by the child. The
New York Department of Health states, “ Being overweight is the result of unhealthy eating patterns (too many
calories) and too little physical activity.” Diagnosing childhood obesity is
usually measured by a something called a BMI. According to the Let’s Move government campaign, BMI
stands for body mass index and uses a measure of a person’s weight and height
to calculate a certain number. That number, then, falls into a category;
underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese. Although this measure is
often used in a regular household or at a local doctor’s office, I know from
experience that it can give inaccurate results. Recently, I calculated my own
BMI and found out that I had a 25.8 body mass index or what turns out to be in
the overweight category. I know for a fact that I am not overweight, so I sort
of chuckled at the idea that of me being overweight. Maybe doctors and
scientists should come up with a new sort of measurement that is quicker than
going to a check up and having a doctor look at a child.
In a blog that I found by
Stacy Lu, she said “Early
intervention is key, particularly as kids are less set in their ways than
adults, so it’s easier to change their behaviors and teach them new concepts.”
This I had to agree with and after reading this I sort of stopped and thought
about my situation as a child growing up. My mom was always concerned with what
I ate and how much of it. I had to ask if I could have a snack if it was after
supper. I could only eat one of each snack a day and she always made a
well-balanced, nutritional meal for us at dinner. This I have to thank my mom
for. I grew up healthy and with good nutrition and a lifetime of healthy food
knowledge. It has been said in a blog that childhood obesity has tripled in the last thirty
years. That blog also stated that “the obesity rate of 6-11 year olds was 6.5%,
in 2008 had tripled to 19.6%.” After seeing these numbers, I realized that it
is an epidemic that needs to be dealt with. There was another blog that I saw that showed a
picture of a school lunch menu. The menu was terribly unhealthy and the blog
composer agreed with me asking questions like “How can kids not be obese after
eating these lunches?” The blog composer also said that one parent only let
their children eat hot lunches at school once a week because of how
outrageously unhealthy the meals were.
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| Photo from the third blog |
My best friend who is a year older than me is overweight
and his parents are all to blame, in my opinion. Ever since we were young
children, I would always go there and they would have all sorts of unhealthy
snacks that we consume. He grew up not know what he was doing and his parents
let him get overweight and he developed diabetes because of it. To this day he
is still a little clueless to the ideas of healthy foods and nutrition. Now his
life is permanently altered because he has diabetes that was developed at an
early age. He was not as fortunate as I was to grow up with healthy
surroundings. Diabetes is expected to grow as childhood obesity in the United
States increases. In a study conducted by the American Diabetes Association, only 1 in 400 people under
the age of 20 years old have been diagnosed with diabetes. This was quite
stunning to me, I thought it would have been worse but I hope it stays at that
ratio or gets better.
Obesity is expensive to cure. An article I found gives a
figure of how expensive it actually is, “We spend $190 billion a year treating
obesity-related health conditions like diabetes and heart disease, and a
significant portion of those costs are borne by America’s businesses.” (Obama,
The Wall Street Journal) Diabetic supplies are expensive and insurance
companies and government programs have to pick up the slack the families cannot
afford. Obese children require more food to fill so that also takes more money.
Typically, parents who allow children to become obese do not pay attention to
the costs of food. They are buying a lot less inferior goods and a lot more
non-necessary foods such as Doritos and Little Debbie’s that are not healthy
for an already obese child.
Businesses are doing their part to help with the childhood
obesity problem. “Officials said Wal-Mart will make thousands of the packaged
food items that it sells more healthful and affordable by 2015, build more
stores in underserved areas, and increase its charitable donations to nutrition
programs.” (Wilgoren and Mui, The Washington Post) This is a good thing because
from a business perspective, most competitors like Target and K-Mart will come
out with their own version of healthy options to consumers, thus creating a
whole new availability of cheaper, healthy foods to improve lifestyle for
American families. Going back to the same article out of The Wall Street
Journal, “In just the past two years, the company reports that it has cut the
costs to its consumers of fruits and vegetables by $2.3 billion and reduced the
amount of sugar in its products by 10%.” Companies doing new programs like this
make such a difference in the way people shop. They will have all these new and
cheaper healthy choices. Hopefully this will play a part in the decrease of
childhood obesity. Obviously people will be unable to completely stop buying
those unhealthy snacks but at least the options are there for those who do not
really pay attention when shopping.
One negative side to childhood obesity prevention would be
the formation of eating disorders. As parents become more cautious of obese
children they may stress it on them and the children might take it a bit too
far and create some sort of disease like anorexia or bulimia. “Roughly one out
of every 25 girls and women will have anorexia in their lifetime.” (Kam, WebMD)
These eating disorders are created by the children trying to stay fit. They can
really be harmful to one’s health permanently especially at a young developing
age such as high school.
Technology has also become very popular and we are increasingly
depending on it in our daily lives. But the prevalence of these technologies is
also an influence on childhood obesity. “Over the last 25 years, technology now
entices children more than physical activity.” (Saunders, U.S. News) As the
children are around iPods and gaming consoles, they are sitting and playing.
Not outside and running around and exercising while playing. Also, from my
personal experience, the more a person sits around, the more likely they will
eat food in the house. Eating while doing something like watching T.V. causes a
person to lose track of what and how much they are eating, which leads to over
eating.
Childhood obesity is a clear problem facing American
society. The problem of obesity is all connected to a general lack of knowledge
in the field of health and nutrition. A lot of the responsibility of
controlling the childhood obesity epidemic lies with parents. Portion control
and wise nutritional selections would help immensely. Obesity is not only
detrimental to the health of its victims, it is harmful to the health of the
economy. Doubtless, the epidemic of obesity needs to be addressed. There is no
single fix to the problem, but education is one vital part of the solution. To
fully understand childhood obesity, a person must first understand the basics
of health and nutrition.
Works Cited
Kam, Katherine. "Eating Disorders in Children and Teens" WebMD: Children's Health. WebMD, No Date. Web. 06 April 2013.
Obama, Michelle. “Michelle Obama:
The Business Case for Healthier Food Options” The Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 04 April 2013.
Saunders, Len. “Understanding
Childhood Obesity” U.S. News: Health. U.S.
News, 23 Oct. 2012. Web. 04 April
2013.
Wilgoren, Debbi, and Mui, Ylan Q.
“With praise from Michelle Obama, Wal-Mart announces healthy food campaign” The Washington Post: Business. The Washington Post, 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 05 April 2013.
