Argumentative Essay
Introduction:
The frightening statistics of childhood obesity seem to have made shock waves all over the world as one discovers that about twenty five per cent of the childhood population in certain select populations of the world is suffering from childhood obesity. The trends in this malaise were visible first of all in America where the disease has had several victims in the adolescent and middle age groups. The idea of having fat children was at the outset very attractive when one loved picking up chubby rosy cheeked cherubs but gradually with the obesity factor surpassing the cuteness syndrome the reality began to surface as mothers and most other people began to abhor these abnormally fat babies and then children. It is rather pathetic that the children who are supposed to be the joy and pride of their mother’s eye tend to become eyesores before the self same mother,
Doctors diagnose obesity as the onset of a number of conditions in conjunction or in combination. Some of these are a drastically high Basic Metabolic Rate. It is of course not conclusively identified as the singular causative factor. Childhood obesity became noticeable in the US when there were several other physical issues that became connected with the problem of being over weighted among children of different age brackets. The worst hit category were the under two-year olds who were supposed to be picking up a number of activities like crawling, walking, running and even jumping during this period. However, because of the abnormally high weight there was little chance of the little child developing any of these faculties. This was a parasoxical situation because if the child did not pick up the activities of crawling, walking and running etc there would be lesser chance of burning fat and decreasing weight. The already sedentary habit of the child would become aggravated and would lead to even greater risk of the development of life threatening conditions like hyper tension, diabetes and several other malfunctions.
Development related growth in the availability of food products and also the subsequent experimentation with fat richer, ready to eat products made the life style changes subtly in the lives of Americans during the late seventies and early eighties. By the late eighties the impact of these lifestyle changes began to be glaringly visible. Decreases physical activity, increased sedentary habit and voluminous increase in fast foods intake all took their toll on the American and more affluent nations citizens.
The concept of fitness, healthy and athletic took a back seat as the Americans and following in their footsteps several other nations too began swearing by the McDonalds. The Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket and the Twinkies delectable soft creamy hearted cup cakes – all were grist to the mill of the foodie youth of America. Soon their representation increased among the most heavy weight children of the world.
Review of Literature
According to Peter G. Kopelman (2005) in his detailed treatise on “Clinical obesity in adults and children” in Adults and Children published by Blackwell Publishing he emphatically warns that because of the astronomically rising rates of prevalence which had gone up by almost ten times in a decade or two and the terribly alarming impact it was having upon children and adolescents it was among the foremost health concerns of the public health sector globally [Kopelman, 2005, p. 493] . The chief concerns of the public health specialists it that this problem of childhood obesity has emerged very fast and has spread like a veritable epidemic across the continents. There are very few countries that have not been affected by this condition. This is also one of the reasons that many a public health expert is bent on seeking an ameliorative solution to the burgeoning problem. The need to contain obesity has been recognized in many a written text among which one of the most prominent ones is the Global Update of 2012 which has taken up the cudgel of spreading awareness on the problem among the mothers and children who are afflicted by the problem on how to tackle the disease. Almost the entire world has been taken up in the purview of the articles enclosed in the Global Update – some of them being real surprises like Chile, the United Kingdom, Iran, Cnada, Turkey, Italy, Nigeria and Qatar.
The World Health Organisation [SHO] has also voiced its concerns on this severely debilitating health concern especially among the young and the children of the world. Data shows that obesity began its geometrical progression from the nineteen seventies. There was the advent of packed foods, a large variety of frozen foods and a marked tendency towards red meat and ready to eat foods that were easily available in a number of eateries that suited every pocket. Another fact that one must not gainsay is the availability of the food at the doorstep. When the delivery boys began delivery the food to the very doorstep there was little wonder then that the volumes of food being consumed would definitely be double and trebled within a very short period of time.
According to Murray [2011] the progression in the number of cases of childhood obesity was totally unacceptable especially because extreme obesity cases among children were found to be around 11 per cent and the other forms of obesity , over weight and being fat were another twenty per cent. Thus this rate of increase in childhood obesity was totally unacceptable because children were being inhibited by the lack of exercise and adequate action just because they were unable to do so as they were carrying so much extra weight around.
There is tremendous social stigma attached to the condition of obesity. In this case the children who are in their formative years end up having a number of inhibitions, fears and tend to harbor all kinds of inferiority complexes that have a deep and lasting impact on their psyche. Kane and Frisco [2013] examined the causes of the impact of obesity when they conducted their study on teenage obesity among young women. They had lowered self esteem and even had suicidal tendencies at some point of their lives when they were exposed to the harmful effects of their condition in comparison with the normal teenagers. Many of the girls were is sheer depression that they would not be able to lead normal lives and they would be subjected to ridicule and mockery of their peers and classmates. They were absolute anti social and lived the lives of recluses because they were afraid of public censure. Their habits tended to be even more counterproductive because such children withdraw themselves into their shells of ignorance and lowered self esteem. There was a widespread concern about such people who lived lives of closed in social restrictions and did not want to interact with other people to the extent that they went and continued feeding on their bad habits and kept on aggravating their obese situation.
Kane and Frisco [2013] voice the concerns of many experts when they bring forth the facts that emanate from their research work. They mince no words when they say that the younger obese girls are so low on their confidence regarding their interaction and interrelationships with boys they are even ready to risk unwanted adolescent pregnancy to able to claim that they had the attractions of atleast a boyfriend. There are several such instances where boys and girls who are growing up in a school environment are the butt of jokes and ridicule. They cannot successfully participate in any of the sports or other extracurricular activities in which all the other normal children are participating, Despite their desire to see themselves as a success in some or the other field they are reduced to just watching on the ringside rather than being in the main event themselves. All these feelings that they are internalizing within themselves are bound to have a harmful impact on their overall growth and development because they continue to feel inadequate and useless even after they have grown up and understood that each person has a specific role to play in life. Many a times these teenagers suffering from prolonged obesity bear the scars of their childhood teasing and ridicule long into their adult life and these keep on impacting them so that they have to seek the help of a psychiatrist to overcome their minority complexes or other similar serious conditions.
What is most devastating for most of the victims of obesity is their ability to withdraw into themselves and not share their feelings or fears with anyone. Those who have at least one healthy relationship learn to rise above their condition and with the help of their help mate tend to overcome their inhibitions and disease condition. Later on when they are leading normal lives they may even forget about the traumatic times they had had as obese children or teens.
The causes and persistence of this condition is mainly because of the ability of the disease to be an elusive epidemic in the words of Callahan [2013] who has declared obesity to be one of the most elusive health issues bordering on the magnitude of an epidemic in the United States of America. The author contrasts other health conditions but says that obesity is the single major killer of happiness, self esteem and confidence than any other debilitating condition in the world.
The elusiveness of the disease is because tackling its roots is an elusive business. The causes of the condition are deep seated in the socio-cultural rubric of an individual’s home environment. The sedentary routine, the food habits, the couch potato syndrome of lying before the television and going on filling the mouth at all odd hours of the day and night are also evasive measures adopted by the obese individual.
There is a concentrated need to work against the habits and lifestyles of people to ensure that they are aware and have the capacity to change. A team of Indian experts namely Kalra, De Souza, Sonavane and Shah felt that the family food habits, lifestyle, the child’s early development, early family harmony is also an essential factor while parenting style and relationships all had a lasting impact on the feeding habits of the children. If a child is facing problems in the early years of growth it is bound to impact upon the psyche of the child. There will all forms of retrogressive growth patterns emerging in the child’s behavior a large part of which will centre around their eating habits and activities. If the child withdraws into himself or herself they will tend to be always excluded by all the other children as well. The parents who are the cause of the peculiar behavior of the child particularly because of verbal and physical abuse all can have a very derogatory impact upon the child. Thus causes of obesity may be many but what the overall result is simple and is visible to the eye long before the person afflicted by it notices. There are all forms of foodies in the world. Some simply love to eat and there are some who live to eat. For the obese, however, there is the added cross to bear because their indulgence in food is visible to everyone immediately. Then there is another problem when they go out to buy clothes for themselves. In the Us there are the plus sizes available but in other countries it is impossible to see the volumes of such clothing because probably the number of such people are comparatively less.
Conclusion
It can be summarized thus that the evils of fast food, door step delivery of fat rich diets like pizzas dripping with cheese and the buckets of fried food – all have cast their evil spells on humanity making them decadent and useless blobs of flesh and bellies. Theya re all mouths apparently and have no legs for trimming off the fat from their daily quota of food intake.
There is, however, a silver lining. If the food fads began from the US the fitness fever has also emerged from this continent. The blazing desire to look good to have a zero figure, to be able to fit into ones teenage jeans and the ability to be able to charm a younger person with ones personality are all magic words that have become the wherewithal of the average American youth and middle aged person. Whereas the young people pursued the frankfurters and the pizza boxes with tongues lolling out and drooling all over themselves these days it is passé’ to talk about food and fashion in the same breath because one is often discussing ones favorite ‘high protein’ diet or ones GM diet or even some local vegetable diet extolling the virtues of going vegan,
The real boom time has come in now for the fitness trainers. They use all kinds of inducements to lure people into thinking that they can achieve all forms of shapes and figure. However, it must be acknowledged that the boys who had earlier indulged in freely eating and drinking and had managed to have obese figures where now busy sweating out in the gyms. Trying all forms of weight training and exercises besides spending hours on the treadmills the youth have awakened to the fact that if they were not fit they would be sidelined and would end up losing out on life altogether. There has been a large mushrooming of gyms, exercise hubs and personal trainers in the world today. This is probably the answer to the increased indulgences of the fast food lobbies.
It must be acknowledged, however, that it was the growing awareness on the devastating effects of obesity that brought about the larger global awareness on fitness. The waves of fashion that hit the human psyche across the world wide web were the main channels of carrying across opinions and experiences of a number of subjects related to obesity. The enormous magnitude of this content was a reflection of how desperate the entire world was to obtain some form of ameliorative steps to get rid of this malady. This was virtually and eye opener. Soon there were a plethora of diets, exercises, medicinal concoctions and therapies besides massage regimen that would help melt away the flab. All fields of scientific endeavor also began exploring the many ways of stemming this evil malaise. There were the experts who talked about liposuction and bariatric surgery and colon cleansers to help the obese find a new lease on life. There was, however, only one safe method of survival for the patient. To be patient and deal with the problems one at a time and seek the long term solutions and curatives rather than any short cuts that could endanger their very lives and may even revert them back to a worse position that ever before. There were all forms of examples given of men and women who were so huge that they had gone on total diets of pizza and colas to be in a happy frame of mind but when the reality of their situation hit them they would tend to be abusive and even curse those who held their best interests at hearts no matter who they were – that whether they were their parents, children or even sweat hearts.
The parents of children who have been suffering from childhood obesity often find themselves guilty of overindulging their children out of sheer love and feelings of sympathy for their situation. There is need to educate and counsel such parents and even the young ones how are suffering from this disease to learn the art of zipping up their mouths whenever it tries to open for junk food like burgers, frankfurters, footings and pizzas and pastas. Instead they should train themselves to be able to eat healthy food like fruits, raw vegetables and even some healthy foods like bran etc which would help them build up their resistance to hunger as well as cleanse their entire digestive system of the wrong kinds of fats and other deposits that were slowing down their liver and not giving them the required fillip to digest their food fast and get their processes of ingestion and egesting going faster than the deposits were forming. This magical process of the metabolism would ensure that the obesity steadily decreases and the individual is able to lead a normal healthy happy and weight free life as a youth and as an adult.
References:
Callahan, D. (2013). Obesity: chasing an elusive epidemic. The Hastings Centre report, 43 (1), 34-40
Global Update. (2012). Global Childhood Obesity. Childhood Obesity, 8 (5), 498-500.
Kalra, G., De Sousa, A., Sonavane, S., & Shah, N. (2012). Psychological issues in pediatric obesity. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 21 (1), 11-17.
Kopelman, Peter G (2005). Clinical obesity in adult and children: In Adults and Children. Blackwell Publishing. P. 493
World Health Organization. (2014). Childhood overweight and obesity. Retrieved April 5, 2014, from http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/en/
