Critical assignment - Essay Example

(Position Statement, 2004). In one California study, it was revealed that more than 32 percent of all schoolchildren are overweight and 7.4 percent are unfit (O’Connell, 2008). This indicates that schoolchildren everywhere are struggling with issues of weight, not just your child. There is also a greater likelihood that obese people, what most would recognize as significantly overweight, will develop Type 2 diabetes if they don’t have it already. They have more body fat than is considered healthy for a person of their particular height.

Generally speaking, a person who is 40 to 100 pounds over their recommended weight is considered obese while those who tip the scale at 100 pounds or more over their desired weight are categorized as morbidly obese. The condition dramatically lowers life expectancy and is directly linked to the deaths of at least 300,000 in the U.S. every year (Dorfman, 2007). Up to 90 percent of people with diabetes (type two) are either overweight or obese. Diabetes plays a significant role in the deaths of millions of people worldwide and the number is growing exponentially.

According to the International Diabetes Federation (cited in Dorfman, 2007), the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has risen from 30 million people to more than 246 million people in only the past twenty years. This illness is well documented in the United States, revealing that the total annual economic cost of diabetes in 2002 was estimated to be $132 billion, or one out of every 10 health care dollars spent in the United States. This means it can have a significant impact not only on the health and happiness of your child, but also on the family’s finances, particularly as insurance benefits continue to suffer cutbacks.

A primary factor in diabetes is the level of insulin present in the body. Insulin is a chemical the body produces naturally to mange the induction of glucose into the system. When the body produces too little amounts of