Obesity And Socioeconomics

In this research paper we will be looking at the topic of obesity and the social ramifications that it holds. We will first look at obesity in a broad way. Then we will focus on obesity and its effects on children. And finally, obesity and adulthood will be covered. The topic of obesity is important to the field of sociology because obese people make up a significant portion of the world’s population. In addition, the manner in which obese people are treated has a significant effect on society as a whole.

Childhood obesity is a major public health epidemic which has significantly risen over the past three decades and there is no chance in sight of slowing it down unless real action is taken. This major health crisis continues to reduce individuals’ quality of life and has caused severe health problem like heart disease which is the leading cause of death in the United States and around the world. In most cases, obese children grow up to be an obese adult. The prevalence of childhood obesity can be addressed through education initiatives such as school prevention programs because children spent a majority of their time outside of the home at school, therefore school provides a great opportunity to educate and improve a child’s health at an ideal point before the problem gets worst. My paper will focus on childhood obesity prevention in Hill Top Middle school Lodi, New Jersey.

According to Wall Street Journal, “More than 33% of adults who earn less than $15,000 per year were obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn at least $50,000 per year.” (Izzo 2011) Processed foods such as cheeseburger or French fries tend to be cheaper than buying healthier ingredients and making home cooked food. When people have lower incomes, they do suffer from food insecurity, which is an important connection between poverty and obesity. Two reasons can contribute to obesity: parents are working and are no longer at home with their children and therefore not able to cook balanced meals; and foods with high fat are cheaper than healthy foods.

Obesity is a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in our bodies. This disease is increasing at an alarming rate in American children and adolescents, especially those within the ages 2 to 19. This essay examines the difference between school-based interventions (i.e., educate our children about obesity at an early age, serving right nutrition in schools) and community based interventions (i.e., parents help provide better nutrition for their children) to prevent obesity. Both interventions can help decrease obesity rates in children, but the point of this essay review is to point out which interventions will provide the better results to solve the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States.

One can imagine how obesity is taking over the world 's population, so rapidly and it is obvious that the United States of America has high rates of Obesity. Obesity, also known as overweight, is a serious epidemic disease that can cause harm to the systems of the body including the heart. Obesity is the biggest threat to the United State of America 's population and something urgent has to be done, otherwise our future generation is at stake. the parent of U.S kids should be aware that obesity is affecting health, has national consequences, and lead to depression in the victims. If something is not done fast to alter this misfortune, there is a high percentage that our future generation is at stake.

Parents should shape their children eating habit, by giving them healthy food such as vegetable, and fruit. Parents should prevent their children to have access to junk food, and decrease kids’ food preference. Parents can also encourage their kids to walk to and from school if the school is not too far. Parents should cut off TV time for their kids to two hours a day. Moderate physical activity is very important for children to maintain healthy weight. Kids should be encourage to exercise at 30 minutes a day. This should be done at school since children spend most of their day time at school. Another action that needs to be taken to reduce childhood obesity is food regulation at elementary schools. Government should remove vending machines from all elementary school because these foods contain high calories. The price of low calories food should be reduced to encourage children to eat healthy.

Prevention of health related disease attributed by obesity should begin with educating children to choose healthy lifestyles and not to spend all their money on sugary snacks and drinks. Schools are aware of the increasing rate of childhood obesity and know that education is one of the best tools that can be use at an early age to help reverse the rate of

Studies (Arcaya et al. 2013; Burdette and Whitaker 2004) have identified various factors that play a role in the state of this current conjuncture. Findings on the subject are not uniformed however. Papas et al. (2007) have identified twenty studies in their systematic literature review that investigate the effect of environment’s structure on the rate of obesity. While 17 of those studies show a significant relationship between those two variables, three of them found no relationship. At a county-level, only two studies (Holzer, Canavan and Bradley 2014; Slack, Myers, Martin et al. 2014) have investigated the geographical variability in the rate of obesity. They discovered that higher obesity rates were linked with counties with lower number of dentists per capita, higher percentages of African Americans, higher rates of unemployment, lower rates of educational attainment and fewer adults who engaged in regular physical activity. The results of these two studies provided up to date evidence on a national scale. In the end, the situation remains, the same: the dynamic between local level factors associated with this public health

In today’s world, obesity rate has been increased significantly. Among 196 countries of the world, the Unites States is ranked 19th, and one third of the population in the U.S. have obesity. Reason that people care about how much population is obsessed is that it is “linked to many of the major causes of death in the United States, including heart disease, some types of cancer, strokes, diabetes, and atherosclerosis” (Himes 73). 19th of the world may not seem very high rank, but if imagine one of three family member or neighbor is highly exposed to disease resulted by obesity, it will not become a slight problem that they can ignore. In order to solve this severe problem, many experts of health have researched and argued the underlying cause of obesity, and their arguments are mainly divided by two big categories: environmental factor and genetic factor. Many researcher have argued that genetic factor have more effect on human’s body weight than environment, so individual cannot control their body weight. As those researchers said, gene have some influence on human body related with obesity, but the largest cause of this disorder is environment. In other word, the increasing rate of obesity in America is mainly caused by toxic environment such as unhealthy eating habits and lack of physical activity. Also, it means that there is possibility to prevent obesity if government basically change the people’s thinking about health. Overall, since

The sociological aspect of obesity shown through the impact of families, the government and the economy. The rapidly growing, fast-paced, technological society creates an epidemic of sorts. Families pursue the use of technology, restaurants and fast-paced eating as well as single parenting and parental denial. The government sets a significant health care cost to obesity, which prevents a solution and increases risks. A non-stable economy brings about a society filled with unemployment or multiple jobs as well as both parents working to stay above absolute or relative poverty leading to distractions from a healthy lifestyle. Obesity is a concern, not just for an individual but also for

The rate of childhood obesity has grown an enormous amount over the years with more than 40 million children being overweight! That number is astonishingly high and it is very obvious that something needs to be done about this. Studies had shown in 2008 that more than 40 million children were said to be overweight and the sad truth is that they are still increasing rapidly to this day; also every 1 in 4 teenagers is said to not reach the fitness guidelines (Tanner) according to an article by Lindsey Tanner. For this problem to be resolved not only do the parents of children need to make sure their kids are staying active but also, the schools they attend need to make sure they are getting a well-balanced meal and have some type of physical activity during their school day. Each state in America is given a percentage rate on the number of obese people in that particular state. The highest ranking state is Mississippi with a percentage of 34.9 and the state ranking the least is Connecticut with 24.5 percent. Different researches have shown that each day 850 lives are taken due to obesity and each year there are more than 300,000 people that die from obesity related illnesses. These are deaths that most likely could have been avoided if these individuals would have had the proper exercise and diet in their lives.

Crawford, D., Jeffery, R.W., Ball, K. & Brug, J. (Eds.). (2010). Obesity Epidemiology: From Aetiology to Public Health (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Childhood obesity is one of the major public health challenges of the 21st century. The prevalence of obesity is increasing globally. In 2013, the number of overweight children under the age of five was estimated over 42 million. Childhood obesity can cause premature death and disability in adulthood. Overweight and obese children will grow up to become obese adults and are more likely to develop diseases like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes at a younger age. Many factors can contribute overweight and obesity in children, however a global shift in dietary habits and lack of physical activity play a crucial role. Overweight and obesity are preventable. Unlike adults, children cannot select the environment they live or the food they eat, they are unware about the long term health consequences of their behavior. Therefore, it is important to have strict policies for the prevention of obesity epidemic. School play an important role in fighting against the epidemic of childhood obesity (World Health Organization, 2016). Even after the legislature has enacted laws to support school nutrition and physical education, many states including, Texas has not yet adopted these policies. It is important to have these policies in practice to prevent childhood obesity (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2014). Government play an important role in making sustainable changes in public health. For that reason, the author is intended to

This essay discusses how social constructions have an effect on obesity and what combination of causes and contributing factors it includes can lead to obesity. `Obesity is the term used to describe someone who is overweight and unhealthy. Obesity shortens life by an average of 10 years. It is very common in the UK and results from a study back in 2014 showed that a whopping 65.3% of men and 58.1% of women are obese here. (UniversityOfBirmingham,2016) Being over weight is generally associated with being lazy and unpleasant. There are a lot of media groups that have influenced our society’s perception on obesity and many factors that lead to the disease. Obesity can be life threatening and can be the start of lethal conditions such as diabetes,

Childhood obesity may not seem like a serious problem, but it is a serious medical condition that can have major effects on a child. Although genetics play a role in determining a child’s weight, it is usually due to a child’s amount of exercise and the consumption of healthy meals. Doctors are concerned with the issue, as we all should be, and they are creating new programs that are geared toward helping children learn how to follow a healthier lifestyle. There are some promising outlooks with these programs, and most doctors agree that parents should help their children create a more active and healthy lifestyle. They also agree that the government should provide more attention to the issue as well. Since the growing problem of childhood