Teenage Obesity: Researching the Topic - Essay Example

Teenage Obesity: Researching the Topic The first step in locating an article on Teenage Obesity is to log onto the Library and select thedatabase of the electronic journals. Since this is a topic that has social as well as health implications, I chose EBSCO due to its wide range of available subjects. I selected the sub databases of Academic Source Elite, Health Source, Med Line, and Topic Search. The search yielded 11 articles, which I sorted by date to see the most recent ones first. I eliminated an article that was a news item and another that was inappropriate.

The remaining articles were outdated. I revised the search using the keywords 'overweight adolescent' and located 179 articles. After reviewing several articles and reading the abstracts, I found a peer reviewed journal article that related teenage obesity to sleep disorders. It was a current article, relevant, and published in a well respected journal.The article documented a study of teenagers aged 10-16.9 years and recorded their sleep habits. The aim of the study was to establish a relationship between obesity and sleep disorders.

As a secondary aim, it sought to explore the degree that these disorders contributed to poor academic performance and depressive moods in overweight teenagers. The study found that teenagers that were overweight averaged shorter sleep time, a later sleep onset, and more disrupted sleep. They further reported that this was consistent with parental concerns of the overweight participant's daytime sleepiness, sleepwalking, bedtime resistance, and dissatisfaction with the adolescent's sleep duration.

The study further suggested that lack of sleep might contribute to their excessive weight gain. The study reported that "sleep deprivation may cause dietary cravings and hormonal and metabolic shifts that foster weight gain" (Beebe et al. 2007). The study further found that the sleeping disorders impeded attention, reduced impulse control, and complicated the problem solving process. These mental impairments also contributed to the overweight teen's inability to make good dietary decisions. In addition, the study pointed out that being overweight increases the risk for sleep related breathing difficulties including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (Beebe et al. 2007). The researchers concluded that there was a high correlation between sleep disorders, weight gain, and academic performance.

However, they suggested further study to find the causal relationships between the factors.I would ask a key informant two key questions. Have you noticed young teenagers who may be exhibiting signs of sleepiness and are just beginning to gain weight Would teaching a course in proper diet to young teenagers improve the overall academic test scoresReferencesBeebe, D. W. (2007). Sleep in overweight adolescents: Shorter sleep, poorer sleep quality, sleepiness, and sleep-disordered breathing [Electronic version].

Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32(1), 69-79. from EBSCO.