Childhood Obesity: Thoughts on Prevention and Intervention

In this work, we researching the theme of 'Conclusion to Childhood Obesity Essay' which is one of the most large-scale problem nowadays society.

What is childhood obesity?

Childhood obesity is a condition in which a child is overweight for his or her age and or height. Can affect the child in the future if not dealt with quickly. Many children that are overweight from a young age are usually overweight as adolescents.

Hypothesis

Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. If this epidemic remains unchecked it will condemn our children to a life of chronic illness, ridicule, and a host of other far-reaching adverse consequences.

Aims

The aim of this research is to determine how large this epidemic is, what impact it is having on the child's life and how to prevent a child from becoming obese or overweight.

Causes of childhood obesity

There are many causes that contribute to factors of a child being overweight. They are socio-economic factors, environmental factors and genetic factors.

Socio-economic factors

Socio-economic factors are one of the biggest factors of childhood obesity due to the income of your family and the people you surround yourself with. If your family is a high-earning family, you are able to afford the best of the best food with the best quality ingredients and can afford the latest healthy foods. However, if you are wealthy and have a busy lifestyle you are able to eat out often and you can easily gain weight quickly due to the lack of nutrients in restaurant food whether it is a fast food chain, pub and grill or a regular restaurant. If you are a family that has a lower income are not able to buy the best quality food and buy the food with the most nutrients. Therefore they buy the cheapest food which usually contains lots of additives and fat to bulk up the quantity of the food. With socio-economic factors also comes the factor of the people you surround yourself with such that if your family and friends eat fast food every day or a couple of times a week you will be inclined to eat the same due to the influence they have on you. The school the child attends has a big influence on the child such that if they are not encouraged to play outside and take part on a school sport they won’t as at a young age they need encouragement. At many schools, they take part in food competitions such as how many hotdogs can you eat in a limited amount of time, this teaches children to binge eat what is usually unhealthy food. In many schools, children are pressured to do well in school and get top result for obesity and technology marks this sometimes affects their balanced lifestyle and would work all day and night and not take part in school sports due to the pressure of doing well. This can cause them to become lazy and overweight due to do not burning off your days’ worth of food calories that they have eaten. Many of these children also take energy drinks loaded with sugar to keep awake and keep studying this means extra calories that are needing to be burnt off but aren’t and therefore turn to fat. 

Environmental factors

The environment has a big impact on the life of a child in that if a child lives in an area where there is lots of open space with a playground and trees to climb the child will want to go outside and take part in physical activities and lead a healthy lifestyle. If a child grows up in a small block of flats where there is little space the child is inclined to rather stay inside and not take part in physical activities. Therefore a child that grows up in a large open area with a place to run and play will have a lower risk of becoming overweight than a child that lives in a small block of smalls with no space to run and play.

Genetic factors

Even though socio-economic and environmental factors play a big role in the risk of being overweight it can also be due to your family genetics. If your family has a past of being overweight and has not done anything about it you have a high risk of becoming overweight as well. Scientists have looked at the genetics of parents and their children and have seen that the parent's genes not only influence the outside such as your eyes, skin colour and height but also the insides which affects how one gains and loses weight. Evidence has shown that if both your parents are overweight their child has a 10 times higher chance of being overweight and if only one parent is overweight they have a 4 times higher chance of being overweight rather than a child that has two healthy weight parents. We may directly inherit the gene of being overweight but we also indirectly inherit the parent's habits that can also lead to becoming overweight.

Preventative measures

As a parent, there are many ways you can approach keeping your child at a healthy weight, such as:

Help your child develop healthy eating habits

You need to help your child balance their calories to do this you should start by providing food that has the correct nutrition and an appropriate number of calories. Help your child become aware of what they are eating and how it affects them. Find ways to make their favorite dishes more healthy and therefore you help reduce the temptation for calorie-rich foods. To help your child make the correct healthy choice make sure to have plenty of fruit, vegetables and whole-wheat items available. Choose to keep low-fat or non-fat dairy items in your house. When choosing a meal choose food that has lean meats, poultry, fish, lentils, and beans to have a good source of protein. Teach your child from a young age about the correct proportions of each food group and the correct serving size. Encourage your child you drink lots of water to help stay away from sweetened beverages. Help teach you’re your child to make healthy choices to help limit sugar and saturated fatty foods. If you start of small and add a little very day you will succeed with your child.

Help your child stay active

A child should be doing about 60 minutes of exercise daily. By adding physical activity to your daily routine your child will become encouraged to take part with you whether it is going for a brisk walk, riding their bicycle, jumping rope, swimming, or dancing. By adding this daily activity you are helping your child burn off the calories they ate that day, help reduce stress and anxiety and help to boost their self-esteem.

Reduce the time that your child plays on an electronic device

You should not allow your child to watch tv, play video games or go online for more than 2 hours a day. By limiting this time it encourages them to play outside and find a fun active game for the family to play. This time playing outside could be seen as their physical activity for the day.

Health risks of being obese

When a child is overweight it does don’t only lower their self-esteem or makes them uncomfortable it also comes with some health issues.

Short-term health issues

They may experience bone and joint problems due to the strain of the extra weight. They may experience a shortness of breath that could end up resulting with asthma and constantly being tried. They may have an intolerance to heat and experience raised blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol levels. They can also experience obstructive sleep apnoea where they are not able to sleep properly and therefore have a decrease in concentration and learning performance. There is also a link between early puberty and being overweight.

Long-term health issues

Being an overweight child increases your chance of being an overweight adult and therefore there are many long-term health problems such as heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, back pain, chronic kidney disease, gallbladder disease, dementia, gout, osteoarthritis and several types of cancer but these can all be prevented if action is taken quickly.

The role of technology in childhood obesity

Just the way that junk food can increase a child's BMI it the same with technology. When kids constantly play on they smartphones, PlayStation or watch TV they become sluggish and therefore do not take part in much physical activity. Today kids find it more interesting to sit and play games all day than play outside.

When we take part in physical activity we produce a hormone known as endorphins that make us happy. However, now that playing a game on the internet or watching a good TV show also produces this feeling of happiness there is no need to leave the couch and produce endorphins.

On most technological devices children see adverts for food that is usually fast food or unhealthy snacks. In most of these advertisements we see children, and adults all of the normal size. Having these adverts on children's games puts this idea that they must eat this to fit in but they don’t understand what it does to their health in the future.

Mental health issues related to being obese

Although being obese is a physical problem it plays a big negative role on your mental health, especially in children. In the 21st century, people are obsessed with being thin and discriminate against those who don’t meet the high standard of appearance we have set for the 21st century and we oppress those who are larger people.

Unfortunately in the world today we see people who are overweight as people who have mental health issues but this is not true they are just normal people like those who are skinny.

From a young age, children judge each other based on their looks and not their personalities. Children called each other fat and ugly and don’t understand the damage they are doing. A child that is constantly being called fat slowly starts to believe what that child says and may become depressed, be anxious all the time and suffer from trauma. If it is not dealt with quickly either by explaining to children what to say or not to say or for the child to lose weight it can cause eating disorders to make themselves feel better. These could be becoming anorexic or bulimic. Doctors have found that children that have been abused or raped have a higher chance of becoming overweight or obese. This s due to traumatized people may turn to food to take away the pain of their feelings.

Conclusion

Obesity has a great negative impact on a child's life and has an impact on the future of the person. Obesity of a child is strongly reliant on the living habit of their parents, guardians, and friends. Due to technology taking over daily physical activity more and more each year it can then be seen that the levels of obesity are going to increase in the years to come. Obesity does not only mean being very overweight but it also means that there are serious health issues that follow with it both long and short term. Although obesity is not a mental illness is strongly linked to developing mental issues in the future. If preventative measures are taken there would be fewer and fewer children every year that suffer from being obese. However, some cases of obesity are due to genetics or rare deficiencies that we do not have control over.

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