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Childhood Obesity And Screen Time Essay

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Childhood Obesity Children are the heart and center of our world, their naive attitudes’ give our world a sense of new life. Parents cherish their children and strive to keep them healthy and safe from all evil in our world. Unfortunately, we have seen a rise in childhood obesity in recent years. Childhood obesity is a rising epidemic in which has many contributing factors and it is our responsibility as health care providers to encourage healthy habits and find preventative measures against childhood obesity. Annual doctor’s appointments need to be reinforced in the early years of a child’s life to monitor the child’s nutritional status. Children are considered overweight if they are in the 85th percentile (Centers for Disease Control, 2015) …show more content…

Within screen time there are a number of contributing factors that make it more susceptible to leading to childhood obesity. According to a study done it related childhood obesity to screen time in four ways, including unhealthy eating habits that are learned from advertising, snacking habits while watching TV, the interference with sleeping patterns and that children are sedentary while participating in screen time, which takes away from any physical activity (Strasburger, 2011). These four factors help show the correlation between screen time and obesity. A study done in the United Kingdom found that for each additional hour of TV watched on weekends at age 5, the risk of adult obesity increased by 7% (Strasburger, 2011). TV’s in children’s bedrooms also show a correlation to childhood obesity. First a study was done on 2,343 children ages 9 to 12 years showed that having a TV in their bedroom was a significant risk factor for obesity (Strasburger, 2011). Another study was then done in New York on 2,761 parents with young children, found that 40% of the 1-5 year olds had TV in their bedrooms and those who did were more likely to be overweight or obese. Unfortunately, parents have to deal with how technology is becoming increasingly more popular and being able to limit their children’s screen time to keep them healthy and

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