The Dilemma of Childhood Obesity - Assignment Example

Critically discuss the process of planning Health schools program, which is examining ways of addressing the growing problem of childhood obesity Introduction Calorific imbalance in humans is caused when the intake of calories is more than the exhausted ones, results in obesity. It can only be medicated by the genetic, environmental, and behavioural factors. It is seen that childhood obesity has both immediate as well as long-term health impacts (National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health, 2010). In the United States, childhood obesity is now the most widespread chronic disorder in children. In 2003, the health Survey of England has also reported that the obesity among 2-10 years old was recorded as 27.7% and 13.7% respectively. Genetic characteristics may increase the tendency of the child to have excess body weight but it is applicable only in few of the cases (Farooqi, 2005). According to the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from last three decades, the genetic characteristics of the humans have not changed. However, in the same period the prevalence of obesity has tripled among children. The other factor that causes the imbalance is behaviour. It can be caused by the excess intake of energy in the form of junk food and sugar-sweetened drinks. In addition to this, if the children are not participating in physical activities during schools, this may play a major part in consuming high calories. Other than this, children spend more time in front of television, computers, and cellular telephones (Zametktn, Zoon, Klein, and Munson, 2004). It requires little activity and may lower the children’s metabolic rate. Moreover, they tend to make unhealthy food choices because of excessive exposure of food advertisement. Schools alone cannot solve the obesity epidemic, but it is unlikely to achieve it without strong school-based programs and policies. This is because around 90 % of children are enrolled in the schools and if they develop the habit of good appetite from the beginning, only then they would be able to continue it for the rest of their life. Schools are the basic primary institutions for every field possible; hence, we can say that they can play a vital role in controlling the obesity epidemic (National Association of State Boards of Education, 2004). Initial statement of the issue In the past 30 years, the percentage of obesity has more than doubled in the children and its ratio has tripled among adolescents. Among children between 6 -11 years, the frequency of obesity in 1980 was 6.5% (National Center for Health Statistics, 1999) whereas, in 1998 it has reached to 19.6%. Among adolescents, 12-19 years of age, obesity has increased from 5.0% to 18.1% in the respective years (National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health, 2010). In the pre-school children among the age group of 2-5 years, the obesity rate has increased from 5% –10.4% between the years of 1976-1980. In years from 2007- 2008, for 6 -11 years old children the rate has increased from 6.5% -19.6% (Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2010). It is expected that the ratio of obesity in children will continue to increase if certain concrete steps are not taken against it. Therefore, on the government as well as private level, certain steps must be taken in order to move towards healthy society. Quantify the issue In recent years, obesity has turned out to be a serious health concern for children. There are several factors involved in this process. It is seen that obesity can influence the academic development of the children. In a study, it was found that at the kindergartner’s level, overweight children were found to score significantly less in maths and in reading as compare to their non-overweight class fellows (Datar, Sturm, & Magnabosco, 2004). In middle school, Falkner et al (2001) found that the over-weight students rate their school performance lower than the non-overweight students do thus; they see their educational future in lower position (Mellin, Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Ireland, & Resnick, 2002). Literature also shows that the childhood obesity can also influence the social and personal development of an individual. It is seen that the obese boys and girls receive no friendship nomination. Thus, they are more likely to be socially isolated from rest of the fellows in extracurricular school activities or otherwise (Strauss and Pollack, 2003). In a study by Mellin, Neumark- Sztainer, Story, Ireland, & Resnick (2002), it was also found that these young souls experience the feelings of hopelessness and develop severe emotional problems. As a result, they indulge in more unhealthy behaviours such as eating more fatty foods, binge eating, and watching more television. Evidence for the statement Young obese people are most likely to have higher risk factors for cardiovascular disease, namely high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In obese youths, 5 to 17 years old, 70 % of the children suffer from at least one risk factor of cardiovascular disease, while 39% of the children suffer from at least two or more cardiovascular disease risk factors (National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health, 2010). Children, who are fat, are likely to be exposed to bones and joints problem in higher ratio. Other problems such as, sleep apnea, social and psychological problems like poor self esteem and stigmatization etc. are very common among them (National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health, 2010). The psychological stress of social stigmatisation and discrimination can affect the academic and social functioning of the children and it can persist into adulthood as well (Mellin, Neumark-Sztainer, Story, Ireland, & Resnick, 2002). In addition to this, asthma, and Hepatic steatosis; fatty degeneration of the liver that is caused by a high concentration of liver enzymes, can also be found in obese children (National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health, 2010). Children who are fat in their childhood are expected to become obese or overweight adults. Under this situation, they tend to be associated with the adult health problems as well. These may include several types of cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and strokes. From 1979 to 1999, among 6 to 17 years old children, the hospital stay for obesity related problems was tripled (Dietz, 2004). Potential stakeholders Teachers, schools, government, parents, and students are the potential stakeholders in this case. When we do analysis of the topic, we see that while few of the institutions work in the favour of the topic, others are still working as a hurdle. Weaknesses: Unfortunately, though the children obesity has been declared as the 21st century disease, however due to fewer budgets many schools are unable to offer sports programs, physical education classes and extracurricular activities (USDHH, 2001). Other than this, the reduction of team-based sports at the elementary and middle school has been noticed (Elkins, Cohen, Koralewica, & Taylor, 2004). School is the place where the children are likely to develop their habits. Therefore, as they grow, less physical education classes in school results in students being less physically active outside the school (Kimm et al., 2002). Other than this, as the school grades increases, it becomes difficult for the school to make school-based programs on obesity available for the children. When schools are promoting education about healthy foods, they are more likely to discourage fast food. Nevertheless, when each year almost every school is making millions of dollars from the soft drink companies by letting them operate in their school, they might not be able to convey the message as effectively as they should (Zametktn, Zoon, Klein, & Munson, 2004). In recent years, in USA, one in five schools allows fast-food restaurants to be operated in their premises. This further minimises the ratio to expect schools to play their effective part in the fight against obesity. Obesity can be caused by various factors on different levels. The first level is the “individual” level, where the children have higher intake of energy food with lower physical activities. They have more interaction with the television and the video games thus, developing a sedentary life style. The second level is extended to their “family customs and choices”. They have family customs that promote unhealthy lifestyles and their parenting style does not encourage healthy living setup. The next level is very important in building the permanent habit of unhealthy activities namely “school practices and peer influences”. When we talk about the schools, it is seen that they provide students with unhealthy meals, thus developing their habit to eat food that is rich in fats. They not only provide unhealthy meals, but fast foods and soft drinks are also present in the school for vending. Other than this, the schools have poor physical activities inside as well as outside the curriculum. The curriculum does not provide healthy eating information to the students. They also have poor management for the children that are fat and non-overweight children ends in teasing and bullying. The other level is “community” level. There is a lack of community venues, where families can come with their children, play, and promote a healthy living. In the community, we see poor management of leisure provision centres and the number of voluntary sports club is not sufficient (Leeds Childhood Obesity Prevention and Weight Management Strategy, 2006). Here, the level of contribution rose in the ranks; the government also play its part in not handling the issue of obesity properly. This level is called “local planning controls and strategies”. It is seen that the government is not paying attention to make the area green and provide proper play space for the children, where they can hang out with their families in the evening. The highways and the Public Right of Way networks are insufficient to encourage walking and cycling. The next level is “organizational and commercial practices”; the organizations are encouraging the development and promotion of wide range of the products containing high fat and sugar. Once the product is made and is advertised on the television, the children get attracted towards it and as a result, they incline to buy it. The Super Size Promotions that are offered by the organizations also tempt children to buy more and eat more. The free sampling of sweets and other junk food is also helping the children to get engaged in the activities that promote obesity in children. The last level is “social policies and National legislation”, the advertising regulation, taxation policies, food labelling and the pricing supports the consumption of the food that has dense energy of foods Strengths: To stop the year on year increase in obesity among children under 11, the government of developed countries are trying to play its part by enhancing the culture of sports. They are developing opportunities for the children so that they can develop their talents and enjoy and attain benefits from the full participation. For the children between 5 to 16 years old, the sports opportunities in schools are gradually increasing not only within the curriculum but also beyond it. The percentage of high quality physical education was 25% in 2002 and it rose to 70 % in 2006. Thus, showing the trend in the developed countries towards the physical education and the way they are working to combat the obesity among children. Even so, the ratio of child obesity in the students is increasing to a higher level and childhood obesity is becoming a serious health concern and the most chronic disorder in children (Ogden, Carroll & Curtin, 2006). Potential Programme ROLE OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION: Schools can play a very important role in fighting against child obesity. The staff can promote healthy eating and physical activity behaviours that can be used as a key to prevent obesity (National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Adolescent and School Health, 2010). In order to reduce the percentage of obesity in the children, first the management of the school has to make an active council that only deals with physical activities and nutrition of the students. This body has to be supported by the government. After making the council body on the school level, the school should make certain arrangements to coordinate with other schools and have combine seminars about it. The school’s council should keep in mind the health policies, programs of the school, and develop an effective plan for the improvements. In this way, they can play a positive part in strengthening the school’s physical and nutrition activity policies. For students, the school should design a high quality course in health education, and should make it compulsory for every student until the elementary level. Along with this course, the school must make the physical activity classes compulsory and interesting for these students. The schools should design the curriculum in which they tell the children about the importance of relationship between the physical activity and nutrition. Other than this, the school lunch break and recess time can be used as an excellent opportunity for unstructured activities. In addition to this, health promotion programs should also be designed for the school staff so that they can convince and educate students in a better way. Other than these steps, the school should have quality meals program. It is seen that, in the United States, the schools and soft drinks have a partnership worth millions of dollars. Therefore, many school officials feel it impossible to replace the unhealthy food with the healthy ones. However, if they will replace the soft drinks with water and fresh juice and vending machine candies with fruits, ultimately their profit will rise. Moreover, they will find the students behaviour better in their class and eventually their test scores will improve. ROLE OF TEACHERS: In class, information received from the teacher tremendously influences the students therefore; the teachers should also include small activities related to healthy nutrition in their lessons. The physical health teachers should conduct the lectures on nutritional food often in their class. The lecture must be conducted in a pleasant way. They should use variety of media in order to convey the message clearly. After the lecture, there should be some discussion time in which the students could discuss the personal barriers to achieving these goals. Teachers should provide opportunities for students to eat healthy snacks like fruits and vegetables in the class. This can be done by celebrating the ‘fruit day’ or ‘vegetable day’; asking the whole class to bring fruits on one day and vegetable on some other day. Likewise, the students can also develop the habit of eating fruits and vegetable in school. They should also educate them about healthy breakfasts and the amount of sugar and fats that are added in the fast food. As obese students feel lonely and have low self-esteem, if they will get individual counselling from their surroundings, it can be very beneficial for them. The teachers should arrange them in small groups and provide them with a platform where these neglected students can discuss their issues and concerns. In this manner they would eventually over-come their loneliness. ROLE OF FAMILY: Families are the primary place where the children develop their eating habits. If parents and the children attend some sort of seminars on healthy food and physical activities together, it can possibly give optimum results. Keeping this in mind, the schools should design programs in which they can educate parents and students about healthy food and tell them the side effects if they will not follow it. In the seminar, they should emphasise on the point that for schools, parents should make healthy lunches for their children and intervention strategies should be implemented at home. Following are the certain points that must be done by the parents in order to see their children in good health. For those families who can afford, they should exercise regularly as a family. They can do whatever they enjoy doing together such as playing basketball, walking, swimming etc. In addition to regular exercises, they should plan to spend weekend in activities that involve physical exertion like camping, sailing, skiing etc. Other than this, they should encourage their children to be involved in neighbourhood or community activity centres that are planning sport events (Blasi, 2003). Parents should let their children help in the household chores such as cleaning the house, washing, mowing the lawn etc. These activities are considered as an effective exercise and they would ultimately help the children to remain active. Moreover, parents should keep a keen eye on the time their children are spending watching television, playing videogames and surfing on internet etc. They should plan healthy meals for the entire family. The menu should have abundance of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains in a raw form. The amount of processed food and food in high amount of sugar and fat must be limited. In order to make it an enjoyable activity for the children, the entire family should play part in the meal preparation and must eat as a family. Likewise, they would be able to have an excellent opportunity to learn about healthy eating. Parents should educate the children to eat slowly and feel the sense of fullness. Eating slowly allows the food to digest properly. Other than this, parents should only have a stock of healthy snack because children will not eat high fat snacks if they are not available in home. Parents must not use food either as a reward or as a punishment. Last and the most important thing is that the parents should make their children avoid fast food and soft drinks. ROLE OF STUDENTS: In order to lower the rate of obesity in the students, they should also work to fight against it. For this reason, they must set their goals related to healthier eating habits and physical fitness. With the help of their parents or teachers, they should arrange weekly activity charts, food and exercise worksheets. Parents can treat their children with some outdoor activity if their children will follow the chart for a complete whole month. This approach will further enhance the ability to have active lifestyle. Under proper guidance, those children who are already fat or at a risk of becoming fat can immediately switch to food that are more nutritious and less in sugar concentration. Conclusion In 21st century, the obesity epidemic is one of the greatest public health, economic and social challenges. Therefore, without the strong help from schools, it is not possible to reverse the epidemic. When the schools will put their efforts to promote physical and healthy activities as the fundamental mission of the schools, they would be able to educate students to become healthy and productive citizen that can make positive contribution to the society (National Association of State Boards of Education, 2004). The eating behaviours and the physical activities that affect weight are influenced by many sectors of the society including family, health care providers, government agencies, media, and schools. The involvement of these sectors will be required to reverse the epidemic of the children obesity (Pastors and Yager, 2008). The increased ratio of childhood obesity can result in long-term physical and psychological problems. The burden of reversing this alarming trend mostly depends on the shoulder of families, and schools. This is because the families and the schools influence children most. Both of the groups, family and school, should encourage the students to increase their physical activities and choose food that is more nutritious (Mary, Ballard and Hunter, 2006). It is seen that genetics may be the reason for the rising of obesity among the students, but it is not compulsory. The current obesity epidemic shows that the environment plays a greater role than the genetic influence. (Glanz, Patterson, & Kristal, 1998) Change in the behaviour of the individual is necessary to halt this wave. For this reason, the environment of the society must be changed to support the cause (French, Story, and Jeffery, 2001). This is because the children have little control over their surroundings. They can only fight against this outbreak if their environment has the setting that promotes overabundance of healthy foods, unlimited sources of physical activities and less sedentary options (Ravussin, and Bouchard, 2000). They should be provided with the community that has convenient and safe walking paths. In order to see the change in their habit, the children must have an easy excess for fruits and vegetables. References Blasi, M. (2003). A burger and fries: The dilemma of childhood obesity: For parents particularly. Childhood Education, 79(5), 321-322 National Center for Health Statistics, 1999 Datar, A., Sturm, R., & Magnabosco, J. L. (2004), Childhood overweight and academic performance: National study of kindergartners and first-graders, Obesity Research, 12, 58-68 Dietz, W. H. (2004). Overweight in childhood and adolescence, The New England Journal of Medicine, 350, 855-857 Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, (2010), Overweight and Obesity, Accessed on 4th March 2011 from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/index.html Farooqi IS. Genetic and heredity aspects of childhood obesity (2005), 19(3):359-374. 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