Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Childhood obesity creates health issues such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases which at one point in time were only seen in adults. The children and youth of our society are staggeringly overweight. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the percentage of children in 2008 went up 20% from 1980 (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012). Both rural and urban children are affected with growing epidemic. A child’s health and mental well being are both affected. Parents contribute to supporting lifestyles which are unhealthy even if they are aware of the consequences of obesity. Adult illnesses put a child’s health at risk into their future as adults. The youth of the United States are affected by not only their parent’s lack of initiative but also from available junk food, lack of physical activity, larger portion sizes, and lack of available healthy food sources and facilities to promote active life styles. The objective of this paper is to investigate childhood obesity as an issue and explore applied anthropology methodologies on how to address the growing epidemic of obesity of children in the United States.

We all know at least one obese child. And the rate of obese children rises daily. Obesity is described as a tremendous accrual of fat which raises the body weight over a person’s ideal body weight. The majority of the United States society is aware of what the health officials have stated concerning ideal measurable criteria for weight; Body Mass Index (BMI). It is difficult to measure BMI in children because they are still growing. However the research available includes BMI values which are calculated off of height and weight and one study using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry of assessed fat mass (Tamayo, Christian, & Rathmann, 2010, p. 7).

The 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (CDC, 2012) has found 13% of students fall in the 95 percentile or greater with their body mass index. The National Institute of Health correlated this information with their study of African American children in Chicago, Illinois (Burnet et al., 2008). This fact finding survey focused on four categories and questioned parenting information and concerning in relation to obesity (Burnet et al., 2008). One of the concerning issues that was found was confusion of parents in relation to information provided by organizations including schools and government offices (Burnet et al., 2008, p. 4). Childhood obesity is instigated by emotional, familial, and physiological factors. While these factors are important to address, the main cause of childhood obesity is simply children eating too much, not enough exercise, and lack of proper community education for the parents.

Although