Preventing childhood and adolescent obesity is crucial to the future health of the United States of America. Obesity can be prevented by implementing multiple methods such as providing better health education services, offering better sources in health departments, and learning how to guide children and adolescents through their early years in order for them to instill better eating habits. This will promote their future well-being. It will prevent them from obtaining a variety of health issues such as developing diabetes, heart problems, hypersensitivity and emotional issues such as depression and low self-esteem.
There is enough evidence that the pediatric obesity has increased among the US children. All around the world, there has been a considerable increase in childhood obesity. The diseases which are the consequences of obesity can be categorized in immediate, intermediate and long-term consequences. Referring to the orthopedic problems, the obese children are at a risk of damaging femoral head as a result of dislocation in the femoral growth plate. There have been reports of such incidence in 3.4 per 100000 children. A majority percentage of the patients having unilateral and bilateral slipped capital epiphyses are found to be obese. This problem is also found in the obese children at much younger age as compared to the smarter children. Considering the neurological aspects, hypertension is creating a large number of problems for the obese children. These problems include vomiting, reduced vision and headaches. Normally this problem is associated with older people but the investigation revealed that people under twenty years of age have been found to carry this problem and almost ninety percent of these were obese. There is an ideal weight with every given age of a person and an increase in the difference between ideal and actual weights will mean that the person is more vulnerable to various diseases. There have been certain sleep disorders reported in the obese children. A study including forty-one children with obesity revealed that almost one-third of the children suffered from various sleep disorders (Must and Strauss).
Parents have an important role to play if America wants to control the obesity issue in children and adolescents. They have to keep an eye on their children and their eating habits. By developing awareness about the issue in schools, teachers can also play an effective role in resolving the issue. If we dont take care of our children, there will be major consequences to the future of America.
The presence of obesity has been seen as an important cause of various diseases including pediatric issues. With the recently documented increases in prevalence, pediatric obesity now represents one of the most pressing nutritional problems facing children in the United States today (Must and Strauss, S3). Obesity is identified as one of the major concerns among the society because it is causing many diseases including cardiology issues.
There are many factors that contribute to childhood and adolescent obesity. Parental eating habits can contribute and affect children who are consuming fast foods, instead of a nutritious meal. Although most children do not experience early symptoms of childhood obesity, the metabolic symptoms might appear in the future and children might face health issues in their adulthood. Prior to adulthood, the obese child may develop gallstones, hepatitis, sleep apnea and increased intracranial pressure. In fact, there are few organ systems that obesity does not affect in childhood. (Must, Strauss) Parents must be aware of these issues that might affect the child over time. These effects are not restricted to the childhood only. In fact the effects of these factors escalate as the life of a person goes on and it becomes impossible to cure the after effects of obesity in the old age.
Different causes are studied in order to ascertain the primary factors causing obesity Snacking is one of the main causes of child obesity. When schools lack physical activity or sports programs, the fat and sugar consumed just sit there and are not burned off (Leonard 2010). This means that the obese children do not get involved in enough physical activity that will ensure proper digestion and this food will not cause any obesity in the child. The teachers will also have to keep an eye on the eating habits of children. Especially the things they bring from home to eat in the school. There should be an optimal level of communication between teachers and parents so that combined efforts can be made to control obesity.
A variety of proposals can be presented in order to resolve the issue of obesity. For example, in order to ensure a better future for children, parents have a critical role to play in the efforts that are undertaken to resolve the problem of obesity. They need to encourage their children to go outside and play, or play sports at school and after school hours in order to maintain a healthy weight. Parents also have to keep a close look on the overall eating habits of their children. An active participation by the parents in the daily routine of children will ensure that parents will know what their children are eating. The children should eat in such a way that there are all necessary ingredients included in their diet. Eating time should also be set along with the efforts to indulge the children in exercises daily.
One probable solution is the arrangement of sports activities by schools. The solution to this problem will have a certain amount of costs associated to it. There will be expenses liking booking fee of the space to conduct these activities. Government can also play a part in this by making it compulsory for all the schools to have sufficient space for kids to play. There should be minimum snacks in the daily diet of the children especially if their weight is already more than what it should be. Similar precautions have to be undertaken when the children eat fast-food stuff. The diet of children has to be a balanced one in a sense that it contains all the ingredients necessary for the human body.
Having the resources to put a conference together for parents and children during school hours in order to educate them about healthy eating habits and teach them about the importance of being active (Elbel, Corcoran and Schwartz). This can be done by implementing a short power point presentation during school functions which are scheduled to undergo. This will create awareness among all the concerned stakeholders about the importance of issue. The practical steps will be to enhance the understanding of the real reasons of obesity in the parents and teachers. This understanding will help both these stakeholders in devising some plan that will be used both at homes and at schools.
Genetics also play an important role in defining the presence of obesity in children. However this is not the only reason that contributes to the issue. There are many other reasons that contribute to the problem and are more important as compared to genetics. A single parent is more likely to have trouble having the time to make the proper meals for their children. Media can have an important role to play in identifying the major causes of obesity and giving appropriate solutions. Children are also exposed to different TV shows and advertisements that can manipulate children and encourage them to consume their unhealthy products. There are many ways to prevent child obesity. Many observers believe that if television programs showed more health-promoting commercials featuring fruit and vegetables, children would develop an appetite for them. (Leonard 2010).
Immediate action needs to be taken to combat childhood and adolescent obesity as the future of childrens lives depends on it. Parents must be educated in order to fulfill this objective. Obesity is a dangerous disease that needs to be addressed in the early years of the children. As they get older they will face the consequences of not maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It is not only the parents job to fulfill this, but it is the educators, media, and the immediate familys job to help maintain this healthy lifestyle. If we dont take action regarding this topic, it would result in over half of the American population to become obese over the next decade (Sahoo, Sahoo and Chaudhary).
Introducing healthy foods through media can help substantially reduce obesity in children and adolescents. A healthy food means the one that has all the ingredients necessary to grow a child in a proper way. This will also encourage them to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The efforts can be started by making such commercials which show effects of healthier food and lifestyle on the obese children. Another suggestion is to include certain cartoon characters in these commercials to make them more interesting for the children to watch.
Such commercials are only a start to what is needed to reduce the number of obese children. But given the amount of television kids watch, the media could have a beneficial influence on health by giving them a positive mind-set toward active living and healthy nutrition. (Leonard 2010).
These types of efforts can change the mindset of obese children and ensure that they can also become a healthy part of the society. Staying active is an important fact to take into consideration when educating children about being active and how it will reduce the risk of developing any type of disease that is linked to obesity such as type 2 diabetes. Other than commercials, there can be campaigns undertaken by the media to show the consequence of being obese. These campaigns may include live participation of children from the schools and they will be showing the difference between obese and smart children (Aftosmes-tobio, Ganter and Gicevic).
There are a large number of social and economic effects of obesity in childhood. It is one of the major problems that affect the children in their very young ages and continue to pinch them almost all through their lives. There are certain characteristics which are not associated with the obese children. These include being described as lazy, cheating, lying etc. There is a less tendency in the other kids to make friends with these obese children. There is a tendency in physicians to associate weakness and ugliness with obesity. An important time period in the lives of children is the middle childhood. Especially obese girls have been found to be concerned about image of their bodies and expected rejection. There is no evidence that obese people have lower self esteem but some studies have shown that obese children have lower self esteem as a group. There is a high fear of gaining extra weight especially in the girls as young as five years old. Dieting is being practiced by a majority of third grade girls. There can be discrimination for the obese children while getting admission to some certain schools because these schools may have a good record in terms of sports and physical activities.
Awareness campaigns can be run across all schools to increase the knowledge among school children about obesity. Various NGOs can get involved in the activity of increasing the knowledge of all stakeholders about obesity. The main purpose of these campaigns will be to create awareness among the various stakeholders about this issue. Another step that can be taken by the schools is that various medical organizations can have camps in the educational institutions to check weights of all the students. Those who are found over weight can be separated and kept under observation in terms of eating habits and indulgence in healthy activities. At the next camp after some specified time period, the study will be repeated to check the effectiveness of the previous measures.
A moral aspect of the issue is that the obese children are made fun of and are not able to participate fully in the physical activities. In this regard, the most important part has to be played by the parents and mates at the school. These obese children should be allowed to take effective part in all activities in the school. No one should see their condition as an abnormality. The support provided by the mates and teachers will help children to come back to normal in lesser time than their lone efforts. The sense of competition created in the educational institutions will help obese children get motivated in taking part in physical activities.
Works Cited
Aftosmes-tobio, Alyssa, et al. A systematic review of media parenting in the context of childhood obesity research. BMC Public health (2016).
Elbel, Brian, Sean P. Corcoran and Amy Ellen Schwartz. Neighborhoods,Schools and Obesity The Potential for Place-Based Approaches to Reduce Childhood Obesity. PLOS-One (2016).
Must, A and RS Strauss. Risks and Consequences of childhood and Adolescent Obesity. International Journal of Obesity (1999) S2-S11.
Sahoo, Krushnapriya, et al. Childhood obesity causes and consequences. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care (2015) 187-192.
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