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Childhood Obesity, The Growing Epidemic
There’s an epidemic in the US pertaining to the health of our youth, childhood obesity. One thing that stands out the most to me is the obesity problem we see with our children. This is becoming a major issue for the future of our youth. With all the technology, such as video games, ipods, computers, entertainment systems, cell phones, and the fact you have fast food joints on every block, no wonder our kids are getting heavier and less inclined to be more physically active. When a parent has a kid they’re all about the baby’s health and will do anything to make sure their child is well taken care of. But as the child gets older, all of a sudden their health becomes less important. Now the kid’s appetite grows and the quickest way to get food in their mouths is to do what? Yep, you guessed it right, stop by the nearest fast food place and load them up on junk, junk, and more junk. Easiest thing to do, right? After all you had a busy day at work and the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to feed the kids is to stop on the way home from work and order their favorite, burger, fries, tacos, hotdogs, milkshakes, or whatever their little hearts crave. This has become the norm of the US culture. Problem with this is that our kids are becoming a junk food society, to put it in simple terms; they’re becoming unhealthy and overweight. A high percentage of our youth are facing childhood obesity, and this can be contributed to many factors. One reason is that a lack of exercise or physical activity, technology plays a big role because it keeps our kids less inclined to be active, and to me an even bigger problem lies with poor nutrition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all kids who have the latest technological device are bound to be obese. But for many it has taken the place of a lot of outdoor activities that kids use to do a while ago. I know some of you parents can relate to the days of playing outdoors with your friends, like jump roping, hide-n-go-seek, 1 2 3 red light, hopscotch, team sports, and many more inventive games we played as kids. But now those games and the outdoors fun seem like stone age times. It’s all about video games, cell phones, and computer, the things that has kept our kids sitting on their rear ends and less physically active. Parents! We have to wake up and deal with this serious problem of a generation of overweight or obese kids. I have some interesting facts about the state of health of our children as it pertains to weight issues: • According to the National Health and Nutrition, a third of U.S. children and teens, about 25 million kids, are either overweight or on the brink of becoming so, the highest number ever recorded, according to a government survey out today. • Journal of the American Medical Association: reported that 33.6% of children and teens, ages 2 to 19, were overweight or at risk of becoming so in 2004, up from 28.2% in 2000. That number continues to rise as of today. • Obesity in kids is higher among African American and Hispanic/Latino populations, than Non-Hispanic Whites. This is startling to me because with the excessive weight, comes all sorts of health problems for the child. This can have a devastating effect when he/she becomes an adult. There are ways to prevent, treat, and fight childhood obesity. In dealing with this epidemic, a couple of things we will discuss are:
• Causes and problems of Childhood obesity
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