Analysis of Articles about Child and Adolescent Obesity - Essay Example

BOOKS Burniat, Walter, Cole, Tim, Lissau, Inge, and Elizabeth Poskitt. Child and Adolescent Obesity: Causes and Consequences, Prevention and Management. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2002 The authors have split the book into three parts as causes, consequences, and prevention and management. Within each section, the authors investigate into the increasing childhood obesity in United States. The examination into the causes for childhood obesity reveals over nutrition, lack of physical activities and psychological factors concerning obesity. They say: Energy expenditure in physical activity has been decreasing steadily over many years. Children and adults move less and less. Television and computer games have added to the energy-saving effects of private cars, elevators and central heating (84). After discussing the causes underlying rising obesity, the authors refer to the outcomes of obesity in children's current and future social and biological life. They further relate the enhanced obesity with certain psychological disorders in a children's life. Thus, the book is a broad in scope and draws a classical outlook to childhood obesity by referring to its causes and consequences in terms of physical and societal problems, and probable steps to be undertaken for prevention and management. The book signifies the complexness of the subject and therefore proves to be a valuable and informative guide for everyone associated with childhood obesity. Okie, Susan. Fed Up! Winning the War Against Childhood Obesity. Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press, 2005 Susan has based this book upon the idea of fighting back the ever-rising monster of childhood obesity. She presents important statistics arousing concerns for the Americans as 'the fattest generation' and pinpoints the negative impact it has on health of children. Susan views and projects several adverse consequences of obesity on health and social lives children including inferiority complex and investigates various causes underlying it. She regards unhealthy eating habits and "couch potato" attitudes as the major factors causing obesity. She is of the view that physical activities seem to be severely diminishing in the society leading to an inactive lifestyle: The lifestyle of most U. S. children today is far more sedentary than that of kids who grew up a few decades ago. The reasons are many and include sprawling suburbs; cutbacks in school physical education programs; work schedules that prevent many parents from being available to supervise after-school play; the lure of the passive entertainment provided by television, computers, and video games (118). She propounds several ways to overcome obesity and informs parents and families of effective programs undertaken for this purpose. She regards reduction in non-physical activities as the essence of this fight-back: "a key initial goal for many families might be reducing the time kids (and adults) spend watching TV, sitting at the computer, and playing video games each week and substituting other, more active ways to have fun" (119). JOURNAL ARTICLES Subrahmanyam, Kaveri, et al. The Impact Of Home Computer Use On Children's Activities And Development. Children And Computer Technology. 10.2 (2000): 123-144. Subrahmanyam's article investigates into the possible impacts of increased computer use among the American children. In the beginning of the article, he raises concerns about the increased access of US kids to the home computers and notes the arguments raised by the proponents of enhanced computer use among children. After that, he proposes probable harmful impingements of home computer use among children. He also relates enhanced computer usage to the minimization of healthful physical activities on the part of the children and uses several studies and evidences supporting his argument. He says: It appears that greater access to home computers may actually be increasing children's total "screen time," that is, time spent using a computer, playing video games, and watching television combined As the combined amount of time children spend across these various media increases, the likelihood of displacing time spent on organized sports and other social activities also increases, thus exacerbating the impact on children's physical and social well-being (125). Subrahmanyam also argues that increased computer usage happens to be the major cause of increasing obesity among US children. He concludes, "The evidence on physical effects links the sedentary nature of computer use to an increased risk of obesity" (139). Vandewater, Elizabeth, Shim, Mi-suk, and Allison Caplovitz, A Linking Obesity And Activity Level With Children's Television And Video Game Use. Journal of Adolescence. 27.1 (2004): 71-85 Elizabeth bases the article on the study of hypothesis concerning the increasing obesity levels among American children with television viewing as well as with video gaming. He propounds that both these activities have been studied vigorously with a noticeable emphasis on positive correlation of obesity with television viewing rather than videogames. However, an analysis of his model regressions significantly revealed a huge impact of video games on children's increasing weight levels than television. He says" The overall model regressions indicated that there was a positive linear relationship between electronic game use and weight status. There was also a signicant curvilinear relationship between electronic game use and BMI indicating that children with higher weight status played moderate amounts of electronic games, while children with lower weight status played either very little or a lot of electronic games (79). Therefore, he uses regression analysis to expose a hard link between obesity and video game use. He notes, "video game use, in particular, holds some place in the story behind the increase in the prevalence of pediatric obesity in the United States-especially among very young children" (81). Catherine, Berkey, et al. Activity, Dietary Intake, and Weight Changes in a Longitudinal Study of Preadolescent and Adolescent Boys and Girls. Pediatrics. 105.4 (2000): 1-9 The authors of this article relate the weight changes leading to obesity with the physical activity and dietary habits. The study is done with the help of sampling on different numbers of boys and girls aged 9-14 years concerning their dietary intakes, physical activity and time spent in video games, computers and TV etc. The results showed that " boys and girls who spent more time viewing television and videos and playing video/computer games during a year had larger increases in BMI, as did those who increased their caloric intake more from the previous year" (5). At the end of the article, after having indicated the possible activities leading to obesity in children, the authors suggest the pediatricians to take measures to enhance child's physical activity while minimizing the number of hours spent on non-physical activities. They say: Attempts by pediatricians to modify each of several factors a little, rather than modifying a single factor (activity, TV/videos/games, or energy intake) a lot, might be more successful in individual patients. To prevent excessive annual increases in body fatness in children, public health strategies to reduce recreational inactivity (TV, videos, and video/computer games), to increase recreational physical activity, and to reduce excess caloric intake may be promising (6). Hill, James, and Frederick Trowbridge. Childhood Obesity: Future Directions and Research Priorities. Pediatrics. 101.3 (1998): 570-574 The authors of this article start off by showing profound apprehensions on the rising obesity among children in United States. They state that the current generation in the country tends to be more obese than the previous ones and fear if this trend continues, the future generations will be even fatter. They say that although people are aware of the impacts of obesity on health of children, not much act ions are being taken in this regard. They further relate the causes of rising obesity to binge eating and sedentary activities such as videogames, computer games and TV: Trends toward increasing amounts of time spent in sedentary activities also may be contributing to the increase in childhood obesity. The attractiveness of television, video games, and computer games may be leading to less time spent in more physically active behaviors. Research suggests that efforts to decrease time spent in sedentary activities may be an intervention that should be pursued in addition to interventions designed specifically to promote physical activity (572). The authors do not only pin point the major causes and impacts of obesity in the current and future lives of American children, but also suggest immediate actions to be undertaken in this regard. They present different actions to be taken at different levels such as social, community, financial, parental and school by referring the current obesity state in the country as the high time for the people to react. WEBSITES Walsh, David, et al. Eighth Annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card. Mediawise. December 8, 2003. National Institute on Media and the Family. June 13, 2006 In this online article, the authors condemn the prevalent use of violent video games among the children. They not only discuss the impact of increased video gaming culture in the lives and psychology of kids, but also emphasize on the increased obesity caused by video gaming by referring it as the 'obesity epidemic'. They say that an increase in video gaming hours contributes to the rising level of inactivity in the kid's lives causing several threats to their health. They further state that videogames and computers do not minimize the time spent by children on watching television; rather the three activities jointly reduce the amount of time spent by children on playing and exercising. They say: "Screen time, of course, is not restricted to electronic games. At the present time the average American child spends 25 hours a week watching TV, 9 hours playing video games and an additional 3.5 in front of the computer screen. The total of 37.5 hours per week is the equivalent of a full time job". The authors further attempt to enhance concerns on the part of children and parents to cut short their time spend in inactive pastimes and enhance their physical activities. They say, "It is not the responsibility of the gaming industry to solve the obesity epidemic but it is clear that in order to successfully address this public health emergency, kids need to spend less time in front of screens and more time exercising". Hawkins, Kirsten. Childhood Obesity. Hot & Free Articles. 2006. June 13, 2006 Kisten, the author of this online article, indicates the impact of obesity on children's health level and relate it to the changed culture and activities of kids due to computers and enhanced technology promoting an inactive lifestyle. Kisten states that the level of obesity among the children and adolescents is rising in United States posing immediate threats to children's health and psychology. Apart from inflicting harms on health, obesity also poses threats to the psychological state and self-esteem of children. The author propounds: These children are developing Type II Diabetes and high blood pressure at an early age. They are placing themselves at increased risk for heart disease and other obesity-related diseases. Their weight also makes them the target of bullies and children who insult and taunt them about their weight. This can ruin their self-esteem and put them at risk for depression. The author attempts to state that this lifestyle is being imposed to the current generation of children through enhanced technological and social changes. Children are increasingly becoming victims of obesity due to increased facilities provided to them through technology: "They've been surrounded by computers their entire life and are not as physically active as children of past generations were. Instead of going outside and playing, they tend to hang out indoors, watching TV and playing computer and video games". Arbor, Ann. Help Your Overweight Child Have A Healthy Future Through Simple Food And Exercise Tips, U-M Expert Says. UMHS Press Release: Childhood Obesity. September 2, 2003. University Of Michigan Health System. June 13, 2006 In this article, Ann pinpoints certain statistics concerning the growth of obesity among kids in United States and relates these trends to typical health threats awaiting them in adulthood and even in old age. She starts off with relating the weight gains to the wrongful eating habits leading to overeating and then point out the importance of physical activity in the promotion of healthy life among children. She says that inactive lifestyle and lack of physical activities lead to obesity and cause several threats to children and this remains the responsibility of parents to help their kids indulge into more physical activity: "Getting kids to burn off calories and build their bodies through exercise and other activity has gotten harder in recent years Parents should limit their children's TV, computer and video game time and encourage them to get moving". She fears that if the eating and activity patterns of American children remain the same, it can affect the young ones' health in different manners. She states that not only their childhood can be affected but also the problems can show up in adulthood: For the long term, obese children may face a life-shortening host of health problems in adulthood. Their arteries may get clogged with cholesterol, setting them up for later heart disease and strokes Their bones and joints may get over-stressed, leading to hip, knee and ankle pain and dysfunction". Childhood Obesity. United States Department Of Health And Human Services. June 13, 2006 This article by United States Department of Health and Human Services presents several statistics on obesity level in the country and the causes associated to it. This study also relates the rising obesity to increasing health defects and diseases threats to the children and teenagers. The article suggests that in the country, general level of food intake has considerably risen while the energy consumption activities have seen a sharp decline. Children are spending more time into sedentary and non-physical activities causing unhealthy signs to appear. Research indicates that a decrease in daily energy expenditure without a concomitant decrease in total energy consumption may be the underlying factor for the increase in childhood obesity. Watching television, using the computer, and playing video games occupy a large percentage of children's leisure time, influencing their physical activity levels. Therefore, an inactive lifestyle promoted by video games, computers and TV cause ultimate threats to children's health patterns. The article also points out that even regardless of importance given to physical exercise, the schools in America tend to reducing such activities: "Currently, schools are decreasing the amount of free play or physical activity that children receive during school hours". Read More