Child Obesity in Epidemic Proportions

Child Obesity in Epidemic Proportions

September 11, 2011

Child Obesity in Epidemic Proportions

Caprio and Genel (2005) described childhood obesity as the most widespread and preventable nutritional disorder of the twenty-first century in the United States according to ,"the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey "(NHANES 2005) reports that there is an increase in the number of overweight children in the United States over the past 40 years." Researching the effects and causes of this growing epidemic in continuous. While there are those that would rather bury their heads in the sand than to face the fact that obese children statistics are growing rapidly. Steps need to be taken to resolve this if we expect longevity in our youth today. This research paper will begin with enlightening how obesity begins. To device a plan including how and why this has escalated over the past few decades to eliminate our children from the fate of obesity. "The proportion of children and adolescents who are overweight in the United States has increased by 7% increase since 1994" (Ogden et al., 2002) and has steadily climbed higher since then. Obesity is sadly on the rise where in many instances parents are not aware of the circumstances or reasons for this rise. This is because we as parents allow our children to consume too much junk food, sugary drinks like sodas and Kool-aide, and far too many fast food quick meals.

It has been a significant rise that the need to understand the underlying causes needs to be not only understood, but to face the fact that in a majority of obese children. The problem stems from the parents or care givers. School nurses can see the rise in obesity among children. Changes need to start in the home environment. Teaching by example what healthy eating and how daily exercise can decrease obesity while staying thinner and healthier. Schools can only play a partial concept to children living healthier. A home with parents that care about their child's health or with a caretaker is the beginning of eliminating and enlightening the reasons for this epidemic of obesity in children and how it began.

The specific claim related to this topic is that obesity in children is often the result of conditions and the upbringing by the parents. Often this is the result of genetics, where and how parents grew up and their family background, including even that of the grandparents. Behaviors, such as a regular diet of fast foods, can lead to an increase in caloric intake causing childhood obesity. According to Gance-Cleveland and Bushmiaer (2005), fast foods are more accessible that ever, with many of these foods processed, prepackaged and containing high levels of sugar and fat. The availability