Childhood Obesity Research Paper

Fearfully Fat In today’s society, children are taught that “image is not everything,” and “just be yourself,” which is true, but people are taking this too far. The motto “Just be yourself” is leading to parent’s letting their children eat what they desire, and not making their child exercise just because the child is happy and that is what they feel like doing. Parents of morbidly obese children should be held at the same standard for the parents who neglect their children because obesity is a decision and can be easily prevented. When walking into a child day-care or an elementary school it is more common to see children that are not only chubby but are considered overweight or obese. How do doctors determine that children are obese? According …show more content…
An article from the Environmental Health Perspectives mentions to make sure a child receives natural vitamin D from the sun. The sun builds the immune system and brings happiness which can help with depression. Children might suffer from depression if they are indoors for excessive amounts of time (“Benefits Of Sunlight: A Bright Spot For Human Health”). Another factor that leads to obesity is decreased activity in children because of the lack of funding for school physical education programs. Because parents don’t allow their children to go outdoors the only physical activity they receive might be from their school physical education class. Sadly, when the government makes budget cut backs, the schools have to cut back on the physical education class time. Therefore, children who do not go outside and do not receive the appropriate amount of physical activity need a class where they can have the chance to be introduced to a glimpse of what a healthy lifestyle may consist of. Not only does a healthy life consist of physical activity, but also food choices. This leads to the school cafeterias. When schools make budget cuts it also goes toward the cafeteria; consequently, the food may not look appetizing for the children so they will choose the more appeasing food. These choices are often items such as ice cream or chips which leads them to make poor eating habits toward the future. Even though the lunch room does play a large …show more content…
Cancer is scary for most people to think about. To think that parents could prevent their child from having cancer makes the parent seem careless, unloving, and irresponsible. Another side parents do not see is when the child is at school. Other fellow classmates, especially at a young age, thrive on teasing kids who are different. By allowing children to be overweight or obese, it leaves them as easy targets to be known as “the fat kid.” As an obese child when they become older they will either become anorexic to the point where they stay so skinny they have to spend time in the hospital and come close to death, just so others will not make fun of them, or take the other path where they will go through their whole life with extremely low self-esteem that leads to depression. Extreme cases of depression, sadly lead to suicide. All these major things affect children physically and emotionally. This -------can be easily prevented by parent

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