Childhood Obesity in the United States
Larry, you know I respect your opinion but there are some things I cannot just sit by and watch. Let me tell you a few things on childhood obesity and maybe you can understand my concern. This is where a child gets fat and the fat in her system begins to have a negative impact on her health and wellbeing. A child is considered to be overweight if her body mass index is considered to be or above the 95th percentile on the scale (Freedman, Mei & Srinivasan, 2007). Sure, you say she is cute round and chubby but this ‘’heftiness’’ may be a source of concern if I let it continue.
I don’t say my lovely daughter does not have baby fat, from what I see it is healthy for her to play with her friends and not be in the risk of being obese in the near future. Do you know a large number of health complications that develop in children in the US are mainly caused by being overweight? See if unchecked, obesity in children can lead to the development of conditions in the body which can lead to fatal diseases in the future. A child may develop intolerance to glucose which may affect their heart as they grow (Freedman, Mei & Srinivasan, 2007). This may make her prone to high blood pressure and those ‘’coronary heart diseases’’ as she grows to become an adult. You wouldn’t wish that for your niece now, would you? Being overweight may also cause her to undergo some psychological complications. Kids in school will tease her and she may develop issues with her self esteem. This may bring about a lot of problems as she grows probably even contribute to her weight getting worse. She may find it difficult to relate to her peers because she will be used to being ridiculed and laughed at. This is a major concern in this country and if you haven’t noticed what is in the papers, the cases of hypertension, heart disease and diabetes have been very frequent in the United States (Colley, 2010). These have mostly been caused by obese patients, and these things are competing with diseases such as cancer and HIV/AIDS in killing people. I would not like my daughter to be part of this statistic (Ogden, Carroll & Flegal, 2008).
This is a social issue and hence society can easily solve this. For example, childhood obesity has been seen to be caused by high calorie food and drinks (Ogden, Carroll & Flegal, 2008). Therefore to curb this it is necessary to ban or reduce the number of vending machines in schools that sell snacks with a lot of calories. Parents also should stop taking their children to fast food restaurants. It has also been noted that the use of milk that has been sweetened is on the increase in the country and is a large cause of weight gain (Ogden, Carroll & Flegal, 2008). Therefore encouraging parents to use whole milk would reduce to a large percentage the weight gain.
As you have probably noted, the society in the United States is very antisocial and kids tend to stay indoors and watch TV. This is also a huge cause of excessive weight gain. Therefore encouraging our kids to socialize and play together would provide them with the necessary exercise that would prevent the development of heart complications. Introducing kids to active sports will also go a long way into helping curb this issue especially in the US. So I think it is advisable to let my daughter go outside and play because she will be preventing a lot of harm befalling on her health.
References
Freedman, D., Mei, Z. & Srinivasan, S.R. (2007). Cardiovascular risk factors and excess
adiposity among overweight children and adolescents: the Bogalusa Heart Study. Journal
of Pediatrics, 150(1), 12-17
Ogden, C.L., Carroll, M.D. & Flegal, K.M. (2008). High body mass index for age among U.S.
children and adolescents, 2003-2006. Journal of the American Medical Association,
299(20), 2401-2405.
Coley, A. (2010). Michelle Obama’s War on Childhood Obesity. CNN. Retrieved from
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-08/opinion/coley.obesity.michelle.obama_1_childhood-
obesity-overweight-first-lady?_s=PM:OPINION
