Childhood obesity in developed nations: causes and solutions

Childhood Obesity Outline

The menace of childhood obesity within the U.S.A. And other developed countries necessitated by sedentary life, a high-fat diet and sugary drinks has reached disproportionate ratios and there is need to institute effective measures to ensure the problem is solved urgently.

We usually think of pandemics as very serious diseases that have the potential to hurt thousands if not millions of people through the disease; obesity is an example of a pandemic. Childhood obesity is a condition which excess body fat negatively affects a child's health. It is quite absurd that, a 21st Century pandemic like obesity is such widespread in developed world through a combination of sedentary life, a high-fat diet and sugary drinks. Through it, people get to be obese to the point of having serious negative effects on their health. Due to the effects that obesity has on children, it has been one of the public health concerns that have reached national proportion. Obesity has taken a serious trend such that first lady Michele Obama has declared it a national health hazard and placed it as one of the top priorities. It is even part of a national political task force with the goal of eliminating the problem.

II. Causes of childhood obesity

A. Dietary factors

1. Eating wrong foods at home

Medical doctors, scholars, researchers all agree that there is a link between what people eat and drink and the consequences to peoples overall health. Childhood obesity is a direct result of lifestyle and overeating. Modern children are not advised adequately in their diets but often misled by advertising, ease and constant pressure. This has led to them preferring foods that have a lot of refined sugar, snack food, high carbohydrates and those that are easy to get and prepare.

2. Fast foods and obesity

Obesity is also elevated by the fact that with the society of fast food, it is quite expensive to eat right, fresh vegetables, hormone free meat, low sugar beverages are all a bit more expensive than high-carbohydrate, fast foods which are so popular and preferred by the younger generation. This has seen the booming of the fast foods businesses across all corners running for 24 hours yet the detriment is squarely on the society.

B. Lifestyle

1. Less physical exercise

The sedentary lifestyle occasioned by docile leisure like playing of computer games or watching of television instead of playing outside. These combined with the food they take results in an imbalance of calorific input/output.

2. Technology and lifestyle

With the increase in technological networking, children do not exercise as they engulfed in the stationary activities like computer games with virtual competitors, internet surfing, chatting through text messages and watching television. As a result the fat stored in the body and cycling feeling of less energy results to developing of obesity.

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion we can say that with the information age there have come changes in education, the way children learn and how they can access information easily. This is quite unfortunate since a combination of these changes has resulted in a rising prevalence of childhood obesity and combined with numerous negative effects has resulted to the issue of obesity becoming a public health pandemic (Get America Fit,2 008). Therefore with the benefits that are got from healthy diets then healthy food policies should be instituted in public schools.