The Problem of Childhood Obesity - Research Paper Example

?Research (Persuasion Paper) Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Thesis ment 4 Discussion 4 Arguments in Favor 4 Arguments in Opposition 7 Conclusion 10 Works Cited 11 Introduction The world’s population is increasing rapidly along with a substantial increase in the occurrences of various health problems in terms of cancer, diabetes, asthma and obesity irrespective of the developments in the healthcare services and treatment procedures. The recent statistics obtained in this regard indicates a steep increase in the rate of childhood obesity worldwide. For instance, between the period of 1999 and 2002, the rate of childhood obesity in US was accounted as 15.9% concerning the adolescents aged 6-11 years. This further increased to 17.4% by 2005 to 2008. Even, the current year statistics reveal that 1 out of 6 children aged between 2 years to 19 years are obese in the US (American Heart Association, Inc, “Statistical Fact Sheet 2012 Update”). Owing to the rising issue of obesity, especially amid children, certain health problems such as diabetes, asthma, and cholesterol among others are also increasing (National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation, “Reducing Health Disparities among Children: Strategies and Programs for Health Plans”). Obesity can be defined as the health problem in which a person tends to have a greater Body Mass Index (BMI) in comparison to the normal BMI calculated at a particular age and height. Generally, the obesity conditions are mostly observed in American, European and Eastern Mediterranean region. From the socio-economic perspective, it can be stated that proper care for health can assist people to reduce the risk of obesity by a certain extent (Kuipers, “Focusing on Obesity through a Health Equity Lens”). However, in most instances it has been argued that whether childhood obesity can be avoided completely. Thesis Statement The primary objective of this discussion is to argue on the problem of childhood obesity as a rising health issue in the present global economic situation. The discussion further goes on arguing on the issue that whether childhood obesity can be avoided and thus be determined as avoidable. Discussion Arguments in Favor The rising issue of childhood obesity has certainly made the healthcare institutions worldwide to consider the problem with greater significance owing to the fact that the children facing such healthcare issues in their childhood can further cause various other diseases imposing serious threat to the overall social health. Generally, it has been observed that a majority of children are affected with obesity in comparison to the adults mostly because of their ill-habit of consuming fast food. For instance, the children get easily influenced by the fast food advertisements aired in the television which lures them to develop such food habits. It has also been observed that most of the children consume maximum fast food when they are busy in playing video games or watching television (National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation, “Reducing Health Disparities among Children: Strategies and Programs for Health Plans”). With reference to the above mentioned circumstances, healthcare units and professionals have been taking possible measures to overcome childhood obesity. According to World Health Organization and other healthcare professionals, childhood obesity can be avoided by the community. In order to avoid childhood obesity, children should take proper care for their health by developing healthy food habit and also by getting involved in certain physical activities such as sports and exercises. Moreover, healthcare institutions also intend to support families of a new born baby by facilitating with proper information related to the daily plan of feeding and caring procedures (National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation, “Reducing Health Disparities among Children: Strategies and Programs for Health Plans”). Education can also serve as an effective way in avoiding the risk of childhood obesity from the community in saving the future generation from being affected. In educational sectors, students are often involved in different physical activities such as indoor and outdoor games. With the involvement in physical activities, students are made to do certain exercises which helps to control their weight in order to become an active performer and simultaneously avoid obesity risks. Furthermore, the regular exercising habits tend to help the heavy weighted students to minimize and control their weight and thus can be regarded in terms of precautions for obesity. Along with the physical activities, schools also serve with certain information about the food habits elaborating on its advantages along with limitations as the information mostly concentrate on the nutritional facts that a food contains and how it affects the human body (St. Vrain Valley School District, “Strategies for Preventing Obesity in Children”). Healthy diet also helps to control weight and thus also play a vital role in avoiding the risk of childhood obesity to a certain degree. Having a healthy diet indicates a process in which a person controls his/her food consumption level consuming food with nutritional basis according to the requirements of the body. Parents can also play an effective role in protecting their children from being affected by obesity. This can only be happen when the children are guided properly and also restricted in having excess quantity of fast food which is considered to be a prime reason for childhood obesity (Department of Health, “Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents”). Health professionals and WHO also plan to have a track upon the increasing rate of childhood obesity worldwide so that they can take apt measures in order to prevent such socio-economic risks. The process of tracking the obesity rate involves health promotional planning, interacting with the parents and keeping a prime focus on the children’s health insurance policies along with taking into account the regular health checking reports (Department of Health, “Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents”). A health promotion program can help to generate understanding in relation to the health condition of children, when they visit areas and community. With relation to the specific problem of childhood obesity, health promotional team members intend to serve the approximated percentage of children who are affected with obesity and thus assist in avoiding the issue. Healthcare units have also taken various precautionary measures in protecting children from being affected by obesity. These measures can be effective when the parents serve with the correct information about the food habit of their children to the medical practitioners. With this primary help from the parents, healthcare professionals would be able to recommend exact medicines as well as the suitable diet for the children and therefore avoid the risk at an individual level (Department of Health, “Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents”). In the current phenomenon, healthcare professionals are also becoming increasing concerned to adopt certain measures in order to avoid obesity, especially among the children. These strategies are often planned to be implemented in the community with the help of parents, nurses and other personnel who are designated to bring-up children and are primarily concentrated on the children’s food habits as well as their physical activities. As per the recommendations of various experts, to avoid obesity, children should be sent for or made to do physical activities so that they can pursue strong health conditions and thus avoid being obese. Moreover, children should reduce the ‘sedentary activities’ such as watching television and playing video games which restricts physical activities (Department of Health, “Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents”). Along with the aforementioned measures, healthcare institutions are also intending to involve educational sectors in the strategic planning by asking them to serve the students with proper information related to nutrition along with physical activities which in turn can play a vital role in avoiding the risk of childhood obesity (University of Maryland Medical Center, “Obesity”). Arguments in Opposition According to family background, genes and market trends it can be assumed that the obesity cannot be avoided from the community at a larger level. With reference to the factor of family background, it can be stated that children act according to the way he/she is treated by their parents and elders. Family background also tends to create a deep impression on the children’s food consumption habits and living style. It indicates that if a child is used to have spicy and fatty food from his/her childhood, it will be tough for them to prevent having those foods in future and thus can become an easy victim to obesity. Hence, it can be stated that regular consumption of fatty food can lead to overweight along with a lifestyle restricting physical activities being influenced by family background or culture (Lindsay, Sussner, Kim, and Gortmaker, “The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity”). As a matter of fact, family traditions cannot be changed quite easily as a result to which obesity cannot be avoided completely from the community. Genes is also a very important factor which plays an effective role in carrying certain diseases in terms of inheritance. From the predefined context, it can be stated that if any parents have the problem of obesity, their children or the next generation are most likely to carry the genes of obesity and therefore become affected by the syndrome (Lyon and Hirschhorn, “Genetics of common forms of obesity: a brief overview”). The continuous development in the world economies along with technology advancements have further led to a massive change in the life styles of human beings. In this change most of the families and individuals attempt to consume fast foods on a daily basis in order to save time and cost as well. The consumption of fast or processed food on a regular basis tends to affect the health of children negatively by making them over weighed leading to obesity. Generally, the developed cities with industrial sectors are identified to face similar problems because of their life style being able to exclude less time for having proper lunch and thus opting for fast food which is easier to consume and are readily available. Based on this context, it is quite apparent that as the countries and the industrial sectors develops and continue expanding people are likely to become increasingly addicted to fast foods which in the long term can lead to rapid augmentation of childhood obesity cases. To be precise, with an increase in the population acquiring fast food in their life style, an increasing number of children are also quite likely to be persuaded towards such behavior accordingly giving rise to childhood obesity (University of Maryland Medical Center, “Obesity”). With the growing number of childhood obesity cases at such rapid pace, it is quite likely that healthcare institutions are quite probable to face significant challenges which in turn can restrict the avoidance of such risks. It is in this context that implementing the planned precautionary measures at a mass level can turn to be nearly impossible in avoiding childhood obesity from a realistic point of view. With reference to one of the strategies implemented by World Health Organization concerning the identification of childhood obesity at a primary stage focusing upon continuous measuring of children’s BMI and likewise recommending precautions, it can be stated that executing programs of such kind at a rapidly increasing rate will certainly require greater labor and investment. Moreover, the efficiency of such programs at an international level to fight against the changing life style of human society being persuaded towards industrialization and highly materialistic living standards can certainly emerge as a severe challenge for the social institutions (Department of Health, “Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents”). Furthermore, the programs to be initiated are subjected to the cooperation of parents and other concerned people which might also prove quite challenging at the community level. From a realistic perspective, parents in the modern day phenomenon are often learnt to be engaged with their professional career with lesser time for their children, which can raise chances for those children to develop an unhealthy food habit and simultaneously increase the risk of obesity. Additionally, with the continuous development in the computing systems, it is gradually becoming quite challenging for parents to keep their children away from sedentary habits (Lindsay, Sussner, Kim and Gortmaker, “The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity”). Hence, on the basis of these arguments, it can be affirmed that even though childhood obesity is avoidable at individual level, it is quite likely to be highly challenging at a mass or community level. Conclusion Various precautionary measures have been adopted by social institutions all around the globe to prevent the risk of childhood obesity with due consideration to its long term ill-effects not only concerning the health of the children, but also of the entire society at large. There are three basic reasons of childhood obesity which can be identified as genetic transfer of diseases, family or cultural background, and lack of information regarding the essentiality of healthy food habits and physical activities. In order to fight these causes, generating information is likely to be the most crucial and beneficial measure which includes the programs of identifying the tendency of getting obese at a primary level and likewise adopt precautionary measures to avoid childhood obesity. In this context, it is the role played by the parents and the schools along with the healthcare service providers which can be termed as crucial when avoiding childhood obesity. However, from a realistic point of view, with the changing life style due to technology inclusion and industrial developments, the measures can be termed as quite challenging to be enforced at a community level. The implementation of the determined measures can further be identified as complex and subjected to greater investment being rooted on an intricate process of channelizing information to all the participants. This also makes the process bit time consuming phenomenon which in turn shall prove inefficient to keep pace with the rapidly changing human society and expanding industrialization. Therefore, it can be stated precisely that even though at the individual level, childhood obesity tends to be avoidable, at a mass level the disease tends to be quite challenging to be prevented by a major degree. Works Cited American Heart Association, Inc. Statistical Fact Sheet 2012 Update, 2011. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. Department of Health. Preventing Childhood Obesity: Tips for Parents, Jun 2012. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. Health Service Executive. HSE Framework for Action on Obesity2008 – 2012, 2008. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. Kuipers, Yoline M. Focusing On Obesity through a Health Equity Lens, Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. Lindsay, Ana C., Sussner, Katarina M., Kim, Juhee and Gortmaker, Steven. “The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity”. The Future Of Children 16.1(2006): 169-180. Print. Lyon, Helen N. and Hirschhorn, Joel. N. “Genetics of common forms of obesity: a brief overview”. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 82.1 (2005): 215-217. Print. National Institute for Healthcare Management Foundation. Reducing Health Disparities among Children: Strategies and Programs for Health Plans, 2007. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. St. Vrain Valley School District. Strategies for Preventing Obesity in Children, No Date. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. University of Maryland Medical Center. Obesity, 2011. Web. 19 Jul. 2012. Read More