Childhood Obesity and Sedentary Lifestyles - Essay Example

Childhood Obesity and Sedentary Lifestyles An Assignment Submitted by of Establishment XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall Childhood Obesity and Sedentary Lifestyles Introduction It is necessary to take into consideration the fact that childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles are the problems that frequently occur to young people in the contemporary society. It is known that today about thirty per cent of children suffer from these problems and become white crows at school because overweight and low activity. U. S. Institute of Medicine stated that “over the past three decades, the rate of obesity has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2 to 5 years and adolescents aged twelve to nineteen years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6 to 11 years. At present, approximately nine million children over 6 years of age are considered obese” (Koplan, 2005). This information concerns the United States of America, but the problem of obesity is relevant to any country. As a rule, obesity and sedentary lifestyles occur to people who live in developed countries. Moreover, these two problems are closely connected as rather often sedentary lifestyles lead to overweight. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the causes and the consequences of childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles. One of the goals is to demonstrate their influence upon children’s life, other people’s attitude towards the children with problems and ways to change the situation for the better. The paper will demonstrate that obesity and sedentary lifestyles are as important as bad habits because they also influence human health negatively. It should be noted that obesity is defined as medical condition when an individual has extra weight. This condition becomes the reason for numerous problems with health. Sedentary lifestyle is also a medical term applied to denote the lifestyle with low or irregular physical activity. The group of children under consideration is the ones aged 5 to 11 years. The paper consists of an introductory part, group analysis; social actions, interventions, and treatments; summary of content and conclusion, reference page. Group Analysis It is necessary to stress that obesity and sedentary lifestyle are common for the children aged 5 to 11. They tend to eat more before computer or television and are not active in everyday life. The problem is that if the habit to eat more and be passive is not changed in this age, children will become even fatter in the future. It is impossible to do something to change the situation for the better without teacher’s and parental help and active involvement. It is known that childhood obesity involves immediate and long-term risks to physical health. For children born in the United States in 2000, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with diabetes at some point in their lives is estimated at thirty per cent for boys and forty per cent for girls if obesity rates level off. Young people are also at risk of developing serious psychological burdens related to being obese in a society that stigmatizes this condition (Koplan, 2005). The majority of parents have no time to prepare healthy food and just buy something on the way home. Of course, it is not a good means to keep fit. This life style influences children greatly. They eat a lot of fast foods and are not very active due to their passion to computer games. So, it is necessary to stress that there are two major reasons for child obesity. They are the following ones: 1. Fast food 2. Passive life style It is also should be noted that parents’ sample influence children greatly. They see that the adults do not eat healthy food and in the majority of cases are not eager to change this situation. That is why children consider it to be normal to eat fast food and sit before the screen of computer the whole day. They see that their parent’s major entertainment is to lie in the sofa before the television screen and consider this sample of behavior to be normal. Another reason for child obesity and sedentary lifestyles is parental ignorance. The majority of adults even do not know how harmful fast foods and passive life are. They have no vitamins and any other useful ingredients. As a rule, any type of fast food contains a lot of calories and this increases human weight. In the majority of cases children do not go to school. There are special buses that take them there. That is why there is practically no opportunity to move and walk. So, this passive life style in combination with improper diet makes a lot of children fat. It turns out that all the calories received via food are unspent. It is necessary to stress that those children who are passive in everyday life risk having problems with health. A lot of various important processes occur when a child is active, plays games in the yard or simply does morning exercises. At this moment the heart gets a proper supply of blood and all the muscles are trained. If this does not happen, a child will have problems with heart in the future. One of them is frequent heart attacks. So, it is very important to do everything possible in order to prevent such consequences. Children who have overweight and are passive suffer psychological, physiological and emotional problems. They are not satisfied with their bodies and do not feel comfortable among fit peers. These may become the cause of various complexes and emotional instability. Such children feel depression and do not like themselves. As a rule, these factors cause poor treatment among the peers. They become white crows and have little friends. Fat children are frequently made fun of. That is why they lack confidence and are rather shy (Pleis, 2008). In fact, the economy of the country influences the rate of obesity among adults and children. If people live in the developed country, they have an opportunity to live better than others and eat everything they want. They tend to spend much time ate work and do not pay much attention to the food they eat. This situation causes obesity. The popularity of television shows and cartoons makes children and adults spend much time before the screen and move little. Moreover, too little attention today is paid to the importance of active lifestyle. However, the society have different attitude towards fat and fit people of various ages. People tend to communicate with those who have pleasant look and keep fit. So, sometimes it seems that all people are divided into two groups: slim and fat. The first ones are respected and liked, the second – neglected. Social Actions, Interventions and Treatments Is there any way out of this situation? Who should be responsible to handle the problem with child obesity? These are good questions to answer. It is known that parents and teachers are the most influential people in children’s life. That is why they should cooperate and do something in order to cope with an issue under consideration. Both children and parents must be informed about the reasons for child obesity. It is the teacher’s task to do that. He/she should be aware of all information connected with the problem of overweight and impart it to the parents and their children. Only this way the teacher is able to support both adults and children in this situation. However, it is not enough just to give information to the parents and children. The teacher should suggest some ways to change the situation. One of the possible variants to help children is to suggest them doing physical exercises at school every day. It may be done as a separate lesson or the teacher may devote just several minutes to this during some class. It does not take much time but seems to be rather effective. Another way to make children more active is to abolish school buses. In this case children will have to walk to school or to some bus stop. This will give them an opportunity to get rid of extra calories even if they eat fast food every day. The teacher should make both parents and children familiar with the best physical activities to lose extra weight. They are the following ones: 1) swimming, 2) brisk walking, 3) aerobic dancing, 4) jogging, 5) playing outdoor games, 6) rock climbing, 7) racquetball and 8) bicycling. One more thing that can be done is the following suggestion. It is possible to hire a cook that would prepare breakfasts and dinners for children when they are at school. There should be no fast food. The cook would have a certain list of dishes to prepare for children. Manu would be based on a strict diet without any calorie foods. It is necessary to prefer the following foods: Whole grains Vegetables Fruits Legumes Fiber rich foods According to a diet children should be taught to east less but on a regular basis. Here is the list of the foods that must be refused: packaged foods, processed foods, refined foods, meat products, fast foods, high sugar foods and high sodium foods. It is necessary to stress that communication between teacher and parents should be central in order to handle the problem with overweight. Teachers and parents’ upbringing and attitude towards obesity should be the same. Otherwise, there will be no use of all the attempts to change the situation for the better. It is awful if a child does physical exercises at school and is given a huge amount of fast food at home after this. So, parents and teacher should cooperate. It will be great to organize special educating lectures for parents in order to inform them about the problem of obesity and the ways to handle it. If there is no opportunity to do that a teache4r should find time and talk to every parent on the individual basis. Being informed is the first step towards the solution of the problem of overweight and its consequences. So, a teacher should do his/her best to inform the parents about obesity and ways to struggle it. It should be taken into consideration that school is not the only institution that may be helpful in this situation. It is necessary to appeal to various agencies in order to do something with problem. What organizations or agencies may be helpful in this case? Here is the list: 1) fitness clubs, 2) churches, 3) travel agencies and 4) weight loss organizations. Each of the above-mentioned organizations may contribute the solution of the problem with overweight. That is why all of them are extremely important and should do their best to help the society to handle the issue concerning child obesity. For instance, various fitness clubs are able to teach children to move more and do physical exercises. Summary of Content and Conclusion Childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles are the major problems that occur to the contemporary children. As a rule, the youth is influenced by improper parental attitude towards their life. Unfortunately, too little attention in the contemporary society is paid to children’s behaviour and menu. This leads to numerous problems that occur to children aged 5 till eleven. They are affected psychologically, physiologically and emotionally. Fat children do not feel equal with slim ones. They are white crows among the peers and feel unconfident. It turns out that obesity and sedentary lifestyles lead to various problems with health. Even if health problems are not seen in the early age, they will become more serious a bit later. The way one behaves in the childhood determines future state of health. So, both parents and educators should do everything possible to change the situation for the better. The conditions at both school and home should be changed so that children can move more and eat healthy food. To conclude, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that obesity and sedentary lifestyles are even more dangerous than smoking or taking alcohol because they influence one’s health greatly, especially if it is a young organism. The society frequently ignores the problems caused by the issues under consideration. It has already become the norm of behaviour to rest before television when one has free time and eat harmful fast foods. Parents worry less when their children are at home before television the whole day as this means that they are in safety. However, it is not so due to the problems caused by this lifestyle. This myth should be broken and society should know the truth about its passivity. References Exercise and Bone Health. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. (2009). Retrieved February 01, 2010. Fredrickson, B. L. (2000). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre003001a.html KidsWalk-to-School: Barriers and Solutions". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008). Retrieved January 25, 2010. Koplan, Jeffrey. (2005). Preventing childhood obesity: health in the balance. Washington: The National Academies Press Pleis, John R.; Lucas, Jacqueline W.; Ward, Brian W. (2008). Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Adults: National Health Interview Survey. Series Reports from the National Health Interview Survey #10. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Poskitt, E. (2008). Management of childhood obesity. New York: Cambridge University Press Waters, A. (2010). Preventing childhood obesity: evidence, policy and practice. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Read More