Teen Obesity Essay

Obesity can often be the consequence of living in a household that instill unhealthy eating habits. Schools can be a positive influence on teens early in life so that obese teens can lead into their adult lives with healthier habits. With these healthier habits, they may likely have more energy to become positive influences in others lives to be healthy and be able to do more. If schools can make such an impact on students’ lives, they should try, even if they needed to sacrifice extra money or instructional time. In 2007, there was a study that only one fifth of high school students had eaten fruits and vegetables at least five times a day in a week (Wexler, 2010). While it is unreasonable to force someone to eat these foods, if they are regularly offered as part of school lunches, students may eat them if they have finished the rest of their lunch and are hungry. Schools should be encouraged to even add fruits and vegetables to vending machines for healthier options.

Do you get enough exercise? Are you sure about that? Or how about this, are you overweight, do you even know? Today’s adolescents don’t. In fact today’s adolescents face serious risk from their lack of activity. Today’s children are obese because they have developed some very bad habits related to healthy living and as result can suffer serious physical and psychological damage.

Within the last 30 years, there has been an increase in childhood obesity that is alarming for parents, health care professionals, and children advocates. This epidemic is a result of children not participating in regular exercise and eating high caloric, fast food. We can combat this epidemic by increasing the education to the family and encourage more physical activity and nutritious foods.

In America childhood obesity statistics show that almost 60 percent of children are obese. This statistic continues to grow at an alarming rate. 70 percent of obese adolescence become obese adults. This means when these children grow into adults they will have more health problems than they already do and their quality of life will decrease. The amount of children who are obese between ages 6-11 years old has risen from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent, in 2008. In adolescents ages 12-19 years old the obesity rates risen from 5.0 percent in 1960 to 18.1 percent in 2008. Last year the United States government stated that obesity and type 2 diabetes have become a national epidemic.

School lunches, curriculum focus, and daily activities have changed in elementary schools over the years. The nutritional value in school lunches often meet a bare minimum. Curriculum is focused strongly on idealistic future careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; but often forget teaching basic healthy habits needed for lifelong health. Physical education is no longer required every single day. Obesity has become an epidemic and not just for adults, it is increasingly affecting children as well. Children spend a generous amount of time in the classroom. They spend more time in school than at home or anywhere else. Therefore, schools have a responsibility in preventing obesity in adolescents by teaching them healthy habits, serving them nutritious food, and providing them with adequate physical activity.

"As they get older, kids and teens who are overweight are more likely to develop diabetes and heart disease." (Teens Health) Children were not seen experiencing these two illnesses before, they were mostly only seen in adults. This shows how obesity is causing health problems in children at an early age than before. Some other health complications that may occur as a result of obesity are high cholesterol, high blood pressure, asthma, blount disease, and many more. Obesity can also harm the mental health of a teen. An obese teen can suffer depression due to their unhealthy state of being and possible low self

Before searching for ways to end obesity, we should know some of the factors that contribute to people becoming obese. Surprisingly, there are many factors that specifically affect teens. A few of them are, excessive use of electronics, a large consumption of fast food (which is high in calories.) and genetics. The most likely cause for the high rate of teen obesity is fast food. Most teens enjoy going out and buying a cheap and quickly prepared meal over making

Alice Parker author of "Teens Are as Sedentary as 60 Year Olds" (Parks 4-5) says that, "Obesity in america shows no signs of showing, and the reasons why it is so widespread can be truly to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle." To live a healthier life, exercise in the teen years. Daily, one should get moderate to vigorous exercise a day. When thinking about exercise it's not only thinking about shape or form. Also you have to know that different exercises affect different parts of the body.

This can encompass multiple factors, but the largest factor are a lack of exercise and poor nutrition. Children are now spending more time playing video games, and watching television, both of which drastically increase their sedentary time. Their lack of exercise at home could also be from the fact that for many families, including low income families in poorer neighborhoods don’t have avvess to safe or desirable physical activity locations. In addition, children are also consuming more processed, saturated foods, which not only affects their weight, but also their healthy development. This is in part to families being unaware of the health risks, and because children are often more exposed to unhealthier foods through advertisements according to the CDC. It is well known that children are often do not have the ability to choose their diet, not do they have the knowledge to fully grasp the negative consequences of their sedentary lifestyle. With so many factors contributing to young student’s lifestyle, it is easy to understand how the childhood obesity crisis quickly came about.

“At present approximately 9 million children over 6 years of age are considered obese” (Mahshid Dehghan). Childhood obesity continues to increase every year. Childhood obesity has a lot of causes centering on an imbalance of energy taken in and the amount of energy used. Factors of childhood obesity include children having obese parents; low energy expenditure which is a low amount of physical activity is a factor and too much television which is a cause for low physical activity time. Another factor that influences childhood obesity is heredity. Infants born to overweight mothers are found to be less active than other infants. Parents are the primary contributors of childhood obesity based on statistics, obesity risks, and government

With children as early as age 7 showing dissatisfaction with their body, and as young as 9 starting dieting, eating disorders are a serious issue in our society. Taking a look at perceptions, behaviors, and medical issues associated with the disorders of anorexia and bulimia, scholars have tried to categorize and find answers to the problems which certain adolescents suffer. In this paper I focused on the two major eating disorders of anorexia and bulimia.

Aged 02-19 years are the most vulnerable group to become obese in our community. Because lack of proper nutrition knowledge, less physical activity after school hour, lack of social engagement, lack of playground in the neighborhood, and safety issues in the community are the important factors influences this age group obesity.

There was a time when chubby children were considered cute. It was assumed that their baby fat would melt away and a healthy adult would emerge. We now know that childhood obesity can be very harmful for our nations children. Not only can obesity cause health problems but also psychological problems. In observing the causes of childhood obesity, hopefully we can slow down the epidemic.

In order to impede the epidemic of childhood obesity, the actual causes of the problem need to be evaluated and dissected. Obesity in children is becoming a huge problem in American society. In the past three decades, the rate of overweight children has increased by 300%. This is an alarming rate that is only climbing higher. Every member in society should take steps to becoming healthier. This would help the present generations as well as future generations to come. The lifestyle of Americans keeps us too busy to be a healthy society.

Teen obesity is a major issue in the world that is rapidly increasing especially in the United States. It has now become one of the most serious health challenges of the 21st century according to unitypoint.org. In the last 3 decades, teen obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled among adolescents. Why you might ask. Well, children become overweight and obese for a variety of reasons. The most common causes are genetic factors, lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating patterns, or a combination of these factors. Only in rare cases is being overweight caused by a medical condition such as a hormonal problem says webmd.com.