Effects Of Obesity On The United States Essay

Childhood obesity has become an epidemic in the United States in the past three decades. In 2012, roughly 17% or 12.5 million children and adolescents are overweight or obese” (“Childhood Obesity Facts,” 2014). According to the Centers of Disease Control and

Surprisingly over 68 billion dollars are spent every year just on obesity related heath problems. That’s a lot of money, this money would not be spent if people were not realizing that obesity is becoming a issue for many. Adolescents who come from a poor family are 2.6 times more likely to be obese. One of the reasons is because healthy foods are more expensive to buy than quick and easy fast foods. (Facts About Childhood Obesity and Overweightness)

Childhood obesity has increased dramatically over the last three decades, and conditions in many communities continue to act as barriers to healthy eating and adequate physical activity. Childhood obesity is a serious health problem that has adverse and potentially long-lasting consequences for individuals, families, and communities. Perhaps most shocking, life expectancy for today’s children may be shortened in the United States because of the impact of childhood obesity (Olshansky and Ludwig, 2005).

It is no surprise that obesity is becoming an increasingly prominent health concern. In fact, since 1980 global obesity has almost doubled. (1) “The percentage of children aged 6-11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12-19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period.” (2) “35% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight in 2008, and 11% were obese.” (1) To put these percentages into perspective, in 2008 the world population was at almost 7 billion, more than 1.4 billion adults, 20 and older, were overweight, roughly 500 million were obese. (1) Obesity can no longer simply be a concern; it is a

The spike in childhood obesity has prompted great concern in the healthcare community and resulted in vast public health efforts aimed at reducing the incidence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that in the past 30 years, childhood obesity has increased by more than 50% in children, more than quadrupled in adolescents and currently over one third of children in America are overweight or obese, according to BMI (CDC, 2012).

Childhood obesity is an escalating issue in all over the world and particularly in the United States' children and adults. This issue has received more attention in last thirty years as the number of flabby and obese children and adults has increased to double in the entire world. According to a report of Centers of Disease Control (2001), the number of obese children and adults has increased to triple with a 14% increase.

Obesity in children (from childhood to adolescence) is associated with psychological, social and physiological consequences. Most of these consequences are evident in childhood and others are evident at later stages in life. The biggest challenge with obese children is that they stand a higher risk of becoming obese as adults too (Wang et al., 2008). Additionally, the youths today have a lower life expectancy compared to their parents because of increased rate for obesity (Olshansky et al., 2005). Obesity has also financial consequences: a study estimates that $3 billion is spent on obese children who are enrolled in Medicaid (Marder & Chang, 2005).

Obesity is considered one of the major healthcare challenges in the 21st century. It has become a growing epidemic among men and women, especially children (Penney,2014). With the expanding population, there seem to be an increase in the number of children who are considered to be obese. There have been countless and numerous cases related to childhood obesity in healthcare in the recent years (Maggio, 2014). According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period. In 2012, more than one third of children were overweight or obese.

The issue identified for this project is childhood obesity. Obesity in children is one of the most pressing medical problems in the United States. Childhood obesity is a serious health condition that can affect children and adolescents and lead into adulthood. Obesity occurs when there is an excess of body fat and for children it occurs when they are well above the normal weight for his or her age and height. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, known as CDC (2017), the percentage of children with obesity in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970’s.

There is a giant threat looming over the United States, a catastrophic event of epidemic proportions which is threatening to capsize the health care system and that epidemic is childhood obesity. The awareness of this epidemic as a national problem developed in 1999 with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) publication of a compilation of yearly state-based maps that indicated the increase in the levels of childhood obesity. There were earlier studies done by the CDC regarding this epidemic, but the maps gave physical proof of the dramatic increase for this pressing issue (Dietz, 2015).

Childhood obesity has become one of the more severe health that our nation is currently facing. On average children weighed more than 5kg higher compared to 3 decades ago in the United States (Lobstein, Jackson-Leach, Moodie, Hall, Gortmaker, Swinburn, ... & McPherson, 2015). According to Block and Oken (2017), a study they did revealed that more than a third of the total population of children in the United States is obese. This is an alarming issue that must be tackled now to save our children.

Obesity is a serious health problem that continues to be increasingly prevalent and progressive disease among children and adolescents with limited treatment options. Not only have increasing numbers of children and adolescents been affected, but the average weight of obese children continues to increase (Barnett & Inge, 2014).

Childhood obesity is a major health issue. The number of overweight children in the United States is at an all time high and rising at a steadfast pace. For us to understand the impact of obesity and why we should prevent it, we will need to take a look at what has contributed to the epidemic in the first place. First we need to take a look at childhood obesity, even if children are slightly overweight and not quite obese at childhood, their childhood is laying the foundation for

Childhood obesity is a national issue in the United States. "In the 1970s, 5% of U.S. children ages 2 to 19 were obese, according to the CDC’s current definition; by 2008, nearly 17% of children were obese, a percentage that held steady through 2010." (“Child Obesity”, 2012). “In 2012, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). That’s one third of 77.4 million children under the age of 18 in the United States alone. “Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates have tripled in the U.S., and today, the country has some of the highest obesity rates in the world: one out of six children is obese, and one out of three children is overweight or obese” (“Child Obesity”, 2012). “This is highly concerning, given that obesity in childhood is associated with the development in adults of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia; pulmonary and sleep disorders; and

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years, the percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the