What Is The Social, Individual And Cultural Determinants Of Obesity?

“Worldwide, at least 2.8 million people die each year as a result of being overweight or obese and an estimated 35.8 million (2.3%) of global DALYs are caused by overweight or obesity” (Global Health Observatory data, 2017). With the help of others, adults and teens in the world will strive in their goals to achieve weight loss. What are the causes and history of obesity? What routines, diet, treatment are available for the overweight individual? Are there support groups for obesity?

Culture is a major factor of obesity. Many people generalize overweight and obese people as lazy and gluttonous. These people who generalize, like doctors and health nuts, ignore other factors that could cause a person to be heavy. They overlook the effect of food habits and how they can be passed down from generation to generation, much like a cultural tradition, and how respecting some of these traditions can be just as important as following their cultures values.

Besides, studies have shown that “The obesity epidemic ranks among the leading causes”. (WHO, 1998) are “poor diet and physical inactivity were the second leading cause of death in the USA in 2000 and may soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of avoidable death” (Mokdad et al.,2004). “Obesity is a complex medical condition, which has social and psychological dimensions and some major economic aspects.” (WHO, 2000). “It affects people of all ages and socio-economic groups, and of both genders, and is not restricted to developed countries” (WHO, 2000). From

Public health issue refers to a health issue that affects the populations as a whole and its financial burden to the society. Childhood obesity is a major public health issue that has impacted the public population health and the cost to prevent and control it. The primary concern deals with obese children growing into obese adults in the future posing an increase in health care cost to obese related health conditions. Strongly linked to mortality and morbidity in adulthood, childhood obesity can cause low self-esteem, eating disorders, negative body image, asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular health factors and decreasing the quality of life (Thorpe, et al., 2004). Social determinants of health impact the risk behaviors of childhood obesity from diet and built environment. At the family level, examples of both determinants can be seen in changes to family structures, socioeconomic status, and perceptions and attitudes toward health and nutrition. Children spend most of their time in a school setting, so school setting changes have been made to nutritional and physical activity policy, physical education equipment, and the sales if unhealthy food and drinks.

Obesity is a medical condition, in which a person’s excessive body fat accumulates to a point where it may have a negative impact on their health causing serious illness, disability and premature death. In Australia the rate of obesity has gradually increased over time, where in 2011-2012 it was found that 35.3% Australians aged 18 and over were overweight and 27.5% obese. (WHO reference)This health condition is the outcome of a range of social determinants that warrant attention. However this report will focus on and discuss two social determinants that could conceivably lead to obesity or being overweight.

Parents are one of the biggest role models to their children. If parents don't buy healthy food their children are going to have unhealthy diets from eating high-calorie food. How much the parents work also affects the children according to Patricia Anderson. Anderson states, “an increase in dual-career or single-parent working families, may also have increased demand for food away from home” (Anderson par. ). When parents work they don’t have time to prepare dinner. Instead, they go to fast food for a quick and easy meal for their family, but the meal is not healthy. The parents are contributing to their children's bad eating habits. Another factor can be genes or ethnicity, some children are at a higher risk for being obese. According to Michael J Wieting, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, genes and ethnicity can play a role in childhood obesity. Children who are of Native American, African American and Mexican descent are more likely to be overweight than youth who are white or of Asian descent (Wieting par. 9). Certain ethnic groups are at a higher risk due to the foods associated with the culture and other hereditary genes. Childhood obesity comes with multiple medical

This is a weakness because the data may have changed due to the rising endemic of childhood obesity in the United States. Focusing on the ideas of “toxic environment”, there has been no research conducted on the relationship to genotype. It is unknown if certain individuals, who have obesity-predisposing genes, are likely to expose themselves to the toxic environment. Concerning socioeconomic status, it is difficult to classify the mechanisms that underlie it, as research has some suggestions, but no definitive proof. Several studies in poor SES areas had a higher exposure to fast-food outlets, which contain calorically dense inexpensive foods. Many low SES communities are situated in high frequency areas, therefore less space for parks or recreational centers. Some researchers claim limited access to resources, differential costs of nutritious foods or access to recreational facilities all play a role in the inverse relationship between obesity and SES. There is little research on how family home nutrition and physical activity influences food insecurity and childhood obesity in rural settings. It is difficult to gain this information, as many people want to live private lives and not be the center of an ongoing research

This paper will explore and discuss the rising issue of childhood obesity by using published books and articles. I will explore five different factors that correlate to possible beliefs of childhood obesity. The factors that I will discuss include: parenting, education, technology, marketing, and the Fat-Gene theory. There has not been one specific cause to childhood obesity but there are underlying effects that can be harmful to children from 2-19 years of age. The

Much has been written to explain the medical aspect of obesity but little attention has been paid to understanding the sociological aspect of the epidemic. This research attempts to understand the sociological aspect of obesity by examining the socio-cultural, gender, and psycho-social effects and includes the different perceptions of the epidemic as well as what is deemed acceptable in the society we live in.

This book comprehensively addresses the subject of obesity. Apart from highlighting the main causes of the epidemic, the book also presents suggestions on what can be done to stem the rising rates of obesity.

A key factor of health in later life is childhood obesity. Childhood obesity is a medical condition where excess body fat negatively affects a child's health or well-being. Medical conditions are not the only factor which causes children to be obese it is the parental/family influences as well. Family influences on children are a huge factor because when children are younger they eat what the parent’s eats which can determine what the child ends up eating.

These observations are worth bearing in mind when we discuss obesity. Obesity is – to a certain extend – a social construct. But obesity is also more than this. As an increasing medical problem, obesity is not merely a condition that can be – or should be – analysed in the light of perception and aesthetics. Obesity is also a product of biological, psychological, and social conditions.

Nurture can include an array of different components from the how much a child is physically active throughout the day to where a child lives and how much their parents make. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention the prevalence of childhood obesity has doubled in the last 30 years and the percentage of children from ages six to eleven who are obese has increased from 7% to now 18% (Childhood, 2015). The dramatic increase in childhood obesity therefore cannot not primarily be caused by genetics and therefore must have a nurture component. The key factors that will be discussed are diet of children, physical activity, and socioeconomically

Obesity is a condition in which the over accumulation of adipose fat tissue causes the weight of a person to increase abnormally. Their weight exceeds by 20%, as a factor of their ideal body weight. According to recent analysis, statistics show that more than one third of the world’s population is targeted by obesity. Research shows that overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight. Obesity occurs greatly amongst adults who are 18 years or older. An estimated 600 million adults were obese out of the 1.9 billion that were overweight, around the world in 2014. One in three adults in Mexico, New Zealand and United States are obese, and one in four adults in Australia, Canada, Chile and Hungary are obese. In contrast, rates of obesity are much lower in Asian countries, where approximately 2-4% of adults have obesity. In countries such as Mexico and the United States, Latino and Africans have the highest rates of obesity amongst all the individuals. However, along with adults, statistics show that the rates for obesity are also high among children within and below the age of 5. As calculated in 2013, the number of children across the world that were either overweight or obese was 42 million. Since then, the rates have increased by 30% more in in low- and middle-income countries than in developed countries. Due to the fact that this condition continues at higher rates across the world, several organizations, such as the World Health Organization, are working with and

Obesity is classified as one of the extremely common and serious public health problems in the world. Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading global risks of mortality in the world (World Health Organization, 2009). Furthermore, they are one of the major factors of for a number of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer (World Health Organization, 2005). According to NHS UK, obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more for adults, and the UK 1990 growth reference curves are used to define obesity for Children (Cole TJ, Freeman JV, Preece MA, 1995). The growing challenge of obesity of Europe countries is remarkable among Asian countries .In 2008, 1.4 billion adults (35%) aged 20 and over were overweight and 500 million were obese (11%). More than 40 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2012(World Health Organization, 2014). That is the global obesity situation. Furthermore, the obesity problem in the UK is not optimistic, the UK has the highest obesity rates among Europe countries, and this trend has strikingly increased over the recent years to the point where more than 20% of the population are now obese. (University of Birmingham, 2014) However, the obesity situation in Singapore is more worrisome. In 2010, 40% adults aged 18 to 69 were overweight and 10% were obese which is more than double the level seen in 1992. (Ministry of Health Singapore, 2010) This essay will