Childhood obesity in the UK - Essay Example

In this paper, the writer will address three areas specific to childhood obesity in the UK. The writer will discuss one cause of obesity, effect, and one solution that can help bring the problem under control. According to 2013 data from PHE (Public Health England), which is an executive agency of the UK’s department of health, 18.9% of children aged between 10 and 11 are obese and 14.4% are overweight (National Obesity Observatory, 2013:1). In addition, 9.3% of children aged between 4 and 5 years are obese and another 13% are overweight.

This data was obtained from a research done by the National Child Measurement Program (NCMP). What does this mean? The data shows that about a third of children aged between 10 and 11 and over a fifth of those aged between 4 and 5 are overweight or obese (National Obesity Observatory, 2013:1). In addition, statistics provided on the Health Survey for England, which sampled a smaller group of children than the NCMP but included a wider range, showed that almost 28% of children between the ages of 2 and 15 are either overweight or obese (National Obesity Observatory, 2013:1).

For a country that is trying to manage its health costs by adopting proactive measures to combat health challenges, these are pretty grim statistics. This aside, the most important question is: what is the underlying factor in these statistics? Why does a country so developed have to grapple with a problem like obesity when there are other ailments such as cancer that should preoccupy its healthcare policies? The answer lies in lifestyles (Shamir, 2013:31). The lifestyles of parents and people surrounding these children are the biggest influence in their obesity.

It is impossible to argue against this statement because it is easy to support it using a number of sub-facts. The first one is that children – not just those in the UK but around the world – eat what their parents eat or what their parents want them to eat