Childhood Obesity: A growing Epidemic in the U.S. Essay

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Executive Summary

Childhood overweight and obesity is a growing epidemic in the U.S. Among children today, obesity is causing a broad range of health problems that previously weren’t seen until adulthood. These include high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and elevated blood cholesterol levels. There are also psychological effects which are obese children are more prone to low self-esteem, negative body image and depression. Having that excess weight at young ages has been linked to higher and earlier death rates in adulthood.

The hope is that one day the childhood obesity rates start decreasing. As of right now the rates of childhood overweight and obesity is increasing. We want the schools, parents, and community to get involved to stop this epidemic.

A number of factors have changed in recent years to account for this rise in childhood overweight and obesity. More families have two parents working and less time to prepare meals. As a result, more families rely on convenience foods and fast foods. Children’s activity patterns have also changed. Children have fewer opportunities to be physically active during the school day. Communities are often unsafe or not designed to include sidewalks to accommodate biking and walking. There is wider availability and usage of electronic media such as television, video games, and computer games among children.

Introduction

As a Kinesiology public health student, you should always have others health and well-being as a main priority. You find solutions to world wide problems such as the childhood obesity epidemic. You begin to develop and implement interventions designed to improve overall health.

Data on the rising prevalence of obesity in adults, by state, over the past 2 decades are provided in Figure 1.

Figure 1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854915/ 2010 State Obesity Rates | State | % | State | % | State | % | State | % | Alabama | 32.2 | Illinois | 28.2 | Montana | 23.0 |
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