The Effects of Consumption of a Healthy Diet and Exercise Upon the Obesity Rate of Children in America - Research Proposal Example

?M. Mostek Research Proposal The effects of consumption of a healthy diet and exercise upon the obesity rate of children in America. LiteratureReview Childhood obesity decreases the life of its victims by 5 to 20 years (Miller, Rosenbloom, and Silverstein, 2004, para. 2). This has made childhood obesity just as big a problem for the advanced countries as are the sustainable development and global warming. A decrease of 5 to 20 years is too much to be taken lightly. “In older adults, obesity exacerbates declines in physical performance and leads to frailty, impaired quality of life and increases in nursing home admissions. Given the increasing prevalence of obesity even among older people, it is important to find ways to combat the problem and help seniors remain healthier and more independent” (Villareal cited in Dryden, 2011, para. 4). Hence, there is dire need to take measures to prevent obesity right from the early childhood. Obesity is a result of the storage of excess fat under the skin. This fat is stored in the body when children consume more energy than is required by them with a certain kind of routine. Therefore, in order to prevent childhood obesity, two of the most fundamental steps that need to be taken are controlling fat intake and increasing the physical workout. In the present age, when more and more children are becoming used to digital technology for all purposes, there has occurred a significant decrease in the level of energy they require to accomplish their tasks. To make it worse, American children have started to consume diets with increased number of calories and cholesterol level. This is the fundamental cause of the rapid increase of obesity among American children. This research is directed at studying the effects of consumption of a healthy diet and regular exercise upon childhood obesity. The results will generate positive impulse among both parents and children to take these measures to fight the epidemic of obesity. Overweight and childhood obesity have become an epidemic in US in the present age. One in every 3 children in US today is overweight (Helpguide.org, 2011, para. 1). In addition to the regular biological consequences of childhood obesity, it also affects the children on an emotional level for the worse. Obese children are often made fun of by their age fellows. Besides, they personally feel left out when they are not able to participate in the physical activities like other children of their age. This lowers their self-esteem, and makes them think negatively about themselves. Some children even become socially excluded. These negative marks on a child’s psychology become groovier as the time passes and the child is not able to interact with the society as a responsible adult in the later years. Obsession with overweight or obesity can also lead a child to such diseases as anorexia nervosa, which is again a health hazard on the underweight side of the scale. The omnipresence of childhood obesity in America is too much an extent an outcome of the sedentary lifestyle spent by a vast majority of the American children. Nutritional diet coupled with lots of physical workout is the essential element of rapid growth and lifelong well being. Presently, 1 in 6 children in America between 6 and 17 years of age are obese because of lack of sufficient exercise (American Psychological Association, 2011). The first and foremost effort that needs to be made to reduce the children’s susceptibility to obesity is changing their diet for the better. It is very unfortunate that junk food has become a fundamental element of the American culture. The contemporary food industry has indulged in many unethical practices and is way off the right track (Swinburn cited in Rose, 2009, para. 4). In the study conducted by McGloin et al (2002), fat consumption was found to be the most frequent cause of childhood obesity. People have several reasons to make junk food a part of their daily diet. Junk food is cheaper, and yet more appeasing to the taste buds than expensive vegetables. Besides, junk food can be easily had from the restaurant at a two minutes’ drive from the home whereas cooking vegetables at home, making the curry and cooking the bread consumes a lot of time that most of the busy Americans don’t have. In every way, junk food appeals more to the contemporary American lifestyle than home-cooked food. What makes it worse is the fact that junk food is not complete without carbonated soft drinks. These are particularly driving the American children towards obesity. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutritionist, Dr. Robert Keith has shared his opinion on the way beverages promote obesity in children: Children up to age 11 need between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day. Only four of these beverages typically add up to between 400 and 600 calories, so many children are deriving up to a third or even half of their daily caloric intake from these products. By consuming a third or even a half of their calories from these drinks, kids are causing the hunger mechanism in their brains to become partly quenched. The result is that they’re less hungry, and with less hunger, they’re apt to eat fewer fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods. You really can’t make kids eat nutritious foods without limiting the intake of these beverages, because this will only contribute to obesity. (Keith cited in Auburn, 2002, para. 5, 12 & 15). Along with the poor quality of food, increased quantity is also a potential causal factor for the spread of childhood obesity in America. Portion sizes for soft drinks, cheese burgers, fruit drinks, desserts, salty snacks, chips, Mexican food and hamburgers increased from 1977 to 1996 (Nielsen & Popkin, 2003, p. 452). A vast majority of the fast food restaurants have started to provide their customers with portion sizes that are 20 per cent larger than the regular sizes for only a small additional price in addition to the basic increase in the sizes of portions. This has increased the caloric count of the food manifolds. Social media has played a very important role in promoting such deals of the obesity sellers. In the last 3 decades, there has been a direct relationship between the prevalence of snacking and that of overweight in the juveniles (St. Onge, Keller, & Heymsfield, 2003, p. 1069). Two fundamental kinds of diets have been identified to reduce the fat intake, namely the low-carbohydrate diet and the low-calorie diet. Nevertheless, children aged between 3 and 5 years who consumed low-carbohydrate diet or/and the low-calorie diet were found to have become obese as they entered teenage (Moore & Daniels, 2004). On the other hand, offering either or both of the low-carbohydrate diet and the low-calorie diet to adults is found to have reduced their weight, decreased their body’s resistance to insulin and decreased their blood pressure (Foster et al, 2003). In light of these research findings, parents need to be very particular in their design of controlled diet plan for the children because consumption of a low-carbohydrate or a low-calorie diet may not always produce the desired results in the long run. Along with the formulation of an appropriate diet plan, it is equally important for the parents to engage their children in regular exercise. “Although losing weight is beneficial and exercise also is good, when seniors do both, they get a greater improvement” (Villareal cited in Dryden, 2011, para. 17). Physical training works by improving both cardiovascular and physical health (Janz et al, 2000). Improvement in cardiovascular health has been found to reduce the risk for diseases and poor health conditions resulting from obesity. In a research conducted by Carnethon et al (2003) upon people aged between 18 and 30 years, it was found that in comparison to high fitness tertile, poor cardio respiratory health creates a relative risk of 3.7 for diabetes, 4.1 for metabolic syndrome, 2.6 for hypertension and 1.3 for hypercholesterolemia. Hence, conventional studies have determined a favorable impact of physical exercise upon childhood obesity. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) formulated a policy in the year 2003 which suggested ways for the prevention of obesity and pediatric overweight (Miller, Rosenbloom, and Silverstein, 2004, para. 21). To help prevent childhood obesity, this policy statement offered advocacy and health supervision. According to the AAP, the first and the foremost requirement for reducing obesity in children is measuring individual children’s susceptibility to obesity. Pediatricians can achieve this by calculating the body mass index (BMI) of individual children at various points in time. Excessive gain of weight can be noticed by comparing the later BMI calculations with the former. In addition to the monitoring of BMI, AAP suggested pediatricians to promote breastfeeding, physical activity, limited television and consumption of healthy food. This policy statement also encourages the pediatricians to generate social awareness and want for the reduction and prevention of obesity. This research is intended to make addition to the findings of the past researchers regarding the usability of healthy food and exercise in obesity prevention. References: American Psychological Association. (2011). Changing diet and exercise for kids. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/topics/children/healthy-eating.aspx. Auburn. (2002, April 19). High-Calorie Drinks Contributing to Juvenile Obesity, Expert Says. Retrieved from http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/health/april19c02.html. Carnethon, M. R., Gidding, S. S., and Nehgme, R., et al. (2003). Cardiorespiratory fitness in young adulthood and the development of cardiovascular risk factors. JAMA. 290: 3092–3100. Retrieved from http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/290/23/3092.full.pdf. Dryden, J. (2011, Mar. 30). Diet-exercise combo best for obese seniors. Washington University in ST. Louis. Retrieved from http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22091.aspx. Foster, G. D., Wyatt, H. R., Hill, J. O., McGuckin, B. G., Brill, C., Mohammed, B. S., Szapary, P. O., Rader, D. J., Edman, J. S., and Klein, S. (2003). A randomized trial of a low-carbohydrate diet for obesity. New England Journal of Medicine. 348: 2082–2090. Retrieved from http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa022207. Helpguide.org. (2011). Weight Problems and Obesity in Children. Retrieved from http://helpguide.org/mental/childhood_obesity.htm. Janz, K. F., Dawson, J. D., and Mahoney, L. T. (2000). Tracking physical fitness and physical activity from childhood to adolescence: the Muscatine study. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 32(7): 1250-1257. Retrieved from http://www.maisativa.com.br/icepafes/arquivos/Crianca-Adolescente06.pdf. McGloin, A. F., Livingstone, M. B. E., Greene, L. C., Webb, S. E., Gibson, J. M. A., Jebb, S. A., Cole, T. J., Coward, W. A., Wright, A., and Prentice, A. M. (2002). Energy and fat intake in obese and lean children of varying risk of obesity. International Journal of Obesity. 26: 200-207. Retrieved from http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/28885/ Miller, J., Rosenbloom, A., and Silverstein, J. (2004). Childhood Obesity. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 89(9): 4211– 4218. Retrieved from http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/89/9/4211.full. Moore, L. L., and Daniels, S. (2004). Weight-loss diets designed for adults may cause children to gain weight. 44th Annual American Heart Association Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. Neilsen, S. J., and Popkin, B. M. (2003). Patterns and trends in food portion sizes, 1977– 1998. JAMA. 289: 450 – 453. Retrieved from http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/289/4/450.full.pdf. Rose, D. (2009, Jan. 9). Childhood obesity has stabilized: expert. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://news.smh.com.au/national/childhood-obesity-has-stabilised-expert-20090109-7de0.html. St-Onge, M. P., Keller, K. L., and Heymsfield, S. B. (2003). Changes in childhood food consumption patterns: a cause for concern in light of increasing body weights. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 78: 1068–1073. Retrieved from http://www.ajcn.org/content/78/6/1068.full.pdf Read More