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Obesity In children can be a serious health issue and may conflict with a
child's social life. These issues often continue as the child gets older and
cause problems as an adult in those ways. Parents are often concerned with their
child's weight and how it affects them, as they should be. Many look for
prevention and treatment options but find out the science is not as precise as
someone would hope. In situations where there are serious health, psychological
or social problems, parents should try to find the best possible advice. In most
cases, common sense is the best answer.
About 15.4 percent of kids are obese. The
increase in obesity among American youth over
the past two decades is dramatic. From the
1980's to now the percentage of obese children
has doubled. There are many factors that
contribute to causing child obesity. Some are
modifiable and others are not. Things that can
be changed include: physical activity, sedentary
behavior, socioeconomic status, eating habits
and environment. Something that cannot be
changed, many people say, is genetics.
Many people agree genetics is a cause, but I strongly disagree. The way
people may find genetics an answer is mainly because many kids with obese or
overweight parents end up being obese or overweight in adulthood. The cause of
this is said to be genetics but here is why I disagree. One could not simply
blame genetics and give the parents little to no credit, I believe it is not the
parents' genes that contribute, but the parents' habits or their teachings to
the child. Obese or overweight parents most likely consume more than enough
food, this in turn rubs off onto the child or the child learns from this and
does the same. I highly doubt there is a chromosome that decides how fat a
person is.
Teaching healthy behaviors at a young age is important since change becomes
more difficult with age. Behaviors involving physical activity and nutrition are
the key to preventing obesity in kids. Families and schools are the two most
critical areas in providing the right thought process for those behaviors.
Parents are the most important role models for children but they all too often
underestimate the health risk of excess weight to their children.
Some ways a parent can establish a healthy lifestyle of healthy habits for
the family are: making time for the family to do regular physical activities
that everyone enjoys; assign chores to every member of the family to do like
vacuuming, washing the dishes, or mowing the lawn; interest your child in
participating in a sport, possibly with the school. Eating habits are also very
important to preventing child obesity. Eating right and maintaining a healthy
diet will greatly decrease the risk of being overweight or obese.
“American
Obesity Association - Childhood Obesity”<www.obesity.org/subs/childhood/>
“Child Obesity Wiki”<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/obesity>
“Causes and Effects of Childhood Obesity”
<www.childobesity.com>
“Kidsource for Parents” <www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/obesity>
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