Obese children in America Essay

Having a child that is obese brings different feelings to people. Some see it as it’s their fault because they want to eat so much. In no way is it the children’s fault as they eat what the parents give them. When you see a child that can’t speak a word but knows how to open a cupboard or the refrigerator to get food it should classify as obese. Most cases of obesity don’t start later, in life there are some cases, but it is usually from young age. The parents of these kids should be punished for making their kids become like this. Thousands of young children know who the spokes person for the fast-food chains are but can’t answer simple questions about famous people. Child obesity in America is getting worse before it will become

Childhood obesity is a growing problem in America. "the percentage of obese children doubling from 6.5% in 1980, to 17.0% in 2006. Weight, nutrition, and physical activity are the main components to a child’s overall health.”(1) “When parents become too busy to cook meals in their homes, children learn poor eating habits and develop into unhealthy eaters.”(1) They will take what they learned at home and apply it to anywhere else that they eat. For example a child that drinks milk at dinner and sits with their family at dinner when asked what they want to drink when they are at a friend’s home will ask for milk because the child would associate milk with dinner. Children cannot make healthy choices of their own they need to be guided so

Currently, the definition of obesity, determined by the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale, considers a child over the 95th percentile to be obese. Childhood obesity affects 17% of the children in the United States, and according to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention, 12.7 million American children will have the prevalence of obesity. Roberto Ferdman argues in his article in The Washington Post that “American kids are still far more likely to be overweight than kids in most other countries.” Some children are more likely to become obese based on their race or gender. “The prevalence of obesity among non-Hispanic Asian youth (8.6%) was lower than among non-Hispanic white (14.7%), non-Hispanic black (19.5%), and Hispanic

Childhood obesity is a huge problem facing America today. It’s like an epidemic, spreading across America at alarming rates. Just in the past 30 years, childhood obesity rates have more than doubled among children and quadrupled among adolescents. Today, it has been estimated that one in every six children or adolescents is obese ("Childhood Obesity Facts”). And if things don’t change soon, those numbers will just keep rising. This isn’t a problem that we can leave up to children to deal with themselves. Parents and adults need to take responsibilities for children’s health and futures. Children or adolescents who have a body mass index of over 30 are considered to be obese. Too much body fat can lead to many negative

When combining these two factors, there is a high risk for developing childhood obesity. However, factors such as genetics, psychological factors, and socioeconomic factors can all play a role in the development of childhood obesity. (Walley) When a child’s family is unhealthy and overweight, it increases the chances that the child will be overweight as well, especially in a household with an unhealthy food supply and lack of encouragement for physical activity. Psychological factors, such as stress, depression, anxiety, and poor self-image all can lead to weight gain in children due to stress eating and lack of motivation to exercise. (Strauss) Also, when a child grows up in a struggling household where the parents opt to buy unhealthy food due to the cost, and the lack of a safe place to exercise, the risk for obesity in children is higher. (Mayo Clinic)

Childhood obesity leads to increased risks to physical and emotional health. According to the CDC, one in three American children born in 2000 will develop type 2 diabetes (Seibel, 2008). Young people are also at risk of developing serious psychosocial burdens due to societal stigmatization associated with obesity. Between 2001 and 2005, the hospital costs for obese children increased from $125.9 million to $237.6 million, according to a study that tracked trends in childhood obesity on hospital care and costs. Researchers also identified a near-doubling in hospitalizations of youth aged 2 to 19 with a diagnosis of obesity between 1999 and 2005 – from 21,743 to 42,429 (Trasande, 2009).

There are many factors that play into whether a child will become obese. Most of the time it is due to lack of physical activity but there are key features such as where you come from and what your race/ethnicity is. If you are from a wealthy family and like to buy a lot of junk food or fast food then you are more at risk to become unhealthily overweight. If you are poorer and come from a minority in some cases you eat the bare minimum which keeps you below the overweight line. This is an important factor to take into consideration.

The basic reasons that cause obesity in kids might be the technology and the food industry development. Technology and fast food can be commonly used, bringing more convenience to the people in their daily life. For example, there are convenient transports, phones, computers and televisions. Kids are spending more time on those instead of going out to do exercise. And kids

Children whose parents or family members have weight problems have increased chances of being obese. Children prefer high sugar food rather than homemade healthy food. Daily consumption of high calorie food and unhealthy lunch like chips, fast food and candies contribute to weight gain. The sugary food helps the body to store more and more fat. Exercise helps to maintain health and burn calories. People of all ages have higher chances of gaining weight when they are less active. In our society, more children are being driven to school than walking by themselves. This encourages the children to live sedimentary

A child's learning ability and overall health can be affected by them being overweight. Some of the obese and overweight "...children are developing conditions and diseases that normally would be associated with adults, such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, ...type 2 diabetes...occurrence of certain cancers, including colon cancer..." (Andrews 2). Along with these conditions and diseases many children are also faced with "...social discrimination" from their peers and the people around them (2). In schools "...overweight students showed 0.4 lower GPA and 11% lower national percentile reading scores... also [they] had significantly more detentions, poorer school attendance,

Obesity is always one of the biggest concerns in the United States. Being obese will hurt children from many perspectives. I used to give a presentation about school bullying. During my research, I found that overweight children are more likely to be bullied by peers compared to normal weight children. Besides being bullied in schools, overweight children are also tend to have lower academic achievement, and more likely to hate schools. Moreover, obese children’s emotions are more tend to be unstable as well. The level of feeling loneliness and helpless are higher among obese children compared to other children. In addition, obesity can bring physical diseases, such as stroke, heart diseases and high blood pressure, etc.

“The rise of childhood obesity has placed the health of an entire generation at risk.” (Vilsack). Child obesity is a very delicate topic nowadays since it deals with health, welfare, and the lives of humans. The position of the United States towards this problem is clear and negative. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of overweight children in the United States have more than tripled over the years, leading them to be the fastest growing segment worldwide. About one in five students, within the age of six to nineteen, have obesity. So, what exactly is obesity? Obesity is a chronic and often fatal disease that accounts for 400,000 deaths each year, being one subject of high concern among the population in the United States, rated as the second

First and foremost, the most common causes of childhood obesity are genetic factors, overeating, and not exercising enough. Although obesity may run in a family, it does not determine whether a child will be obese or not (“Obesity in Children”). If a child who comes from a family of obesity, happens to become overweight like them, the likely cause is due to bad eating and activity habits. Many children today spend more time inside the house eating and watching television, rather than being active outdoors (“Obesity in Children”). This is due to the recent popularity of having electronics such as television, games, and phones serve as entertainment. Another reason for the excessive eating is because parents are often too busy to cook healthy foods on a regular basis, leaving children to rely on fast food or

It’s been shown that children with obese parents are more likely to become obese. Heredity contributes between 5-25 percent risks of obesity. Other risks can be attributed to the environment and behavior. Obesity is generally linked to over eaten but in most cases its heredity problem children should be careful because genes can also pass to their offspring. The problem cannot be corrected but you can prevent it. Children should be given an appropriate diet and should be deterred from overeating. Child obesity can be predicted at an early stage and children should be aware of the consequences of obesity.

In the humanistic perspective, obesity can be caused from a number of different things. Gender differences could be a recent factor to why children are becoming more obese from a younger age. We can link this to how social media is teaching its younger viewers. Social media today talks a lot about how women do not have to be super skinny to be pretty and to embrace their natural curves of their body. It also talks about men “bulking up” and eating a lot more in order to do so and gain as much muscle as possible. Children from a young age seeing this everyday can be the cause of so much weight gain because they do not understand when to stop or what