Introduction
In the United States, it has been noted that there are great challenges in maintaining healthy lifestyles. Adults and children are facing challenges in tackling obesity. Childhood obesity has also been on the rise. Statistics show that 25% of the children in the United States are overweight while 11% are obese. It has further been shown that 70% of these children end up being obese in their adulthood. There has also been an increase in obesity statistics in the minorities especially African Americans and Hispanics (Dehghan, Akhtar-Danesh, Merchant, 1)
Obesity has been defined as having excess body fat. It occurs when the rates of energy uptake exceed the rates of expenditure. The body mass index known as the BMI is the relationship between the height and weight of an individual. Physicians advise that a healthy individual should have a BMI of 25. The guys who are overweight have too much weight compared to their height. There are several factors that contribute to obesity. There are those cases where obesity can be traced to genetic factors such as a deficiency in leptin, growth hormone deficiency or adverse reaction to drugs such as steroids. However, the highest percentage of obesity cases can be traced to environmental factors, cultural influences and personal lifestyle choices.
Dangers of Obesity
There are higher cases of depression in overweight children than lean children. Being overweight increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Obese children are at a higher risk from medical conditions such as glucose intolerance, hypertension and metabolic syndrome. They are also vulnerable to gallstones, sleep apnea, menstrual irregularities and hyperlipidaemia. In social settings the children suffer from anxiety and obsessive compulsive behaviour. They also suffer from negative stereotyping and discrimination. They may also develop chemical dependencies and become suicidal in their adult lives due to the negative psychological experiences in their lives.
Poor Nutrition
The rise in obesity is linked to several factors such as unhealthy eating habits and decline in physical activities taken by the youth and children. It has been noted that parents and schools bear part of the responsibility in the rise of these unhealthy habits.
Approximately 20% of the American population eat fast foods every day. This results to an individual having a high intake of saturated fat and very low intake of vegetables, proteins and vitamins and minerals. Girls are bombarded in the media with images of the ideal beautiful woman who is very thin. They therefore engage in destructive practices such as bingeing and restricting which actually lead to obesity and disordered eating as they are not taking part in physical activities.
Over the recent years, food prices have decreased becoming more affordable to higher number of people. Food intake has ceased being a nutritional requirement to becoming a source of pleasure and a marker of social lifestyle. Exercise alone will not be sufficient to offset the high intake of fats in order to ward off obesity. There has also been an increase in soft drinks and a decline in intake of healthier drinks such as fresh fruit juice and milk. These carbonated drinks have also been linked to the increase in obesity.
Lack of physical Activities
The stereotypes propagated in the media have created a barrier for the young women
Advances in technology have also been cited as a contributing factor to the rise in childhood and adult obesity. Many prefer to spend their time seated on the couch watching movies, playing video games or surfing the net rather than engaging in physical activities.
The parents would prefer their children to watch television and play video games than play outside since it would be difficult to keep an eye on them as they conduct their chores (James, 8). There are also those children and youth who are always driven to school and do not participate in any sport activities. The prevalent culture in certain homes shows why overweight children tend to have overweight parents and they also grow to become overweight adults themselves.
Treatment and Prevention Strategies
With the health risks associated with being overweight and obese, it is important that all the relevant stakeholders unite in confronting this health challenge in order to have a healthy population. There is need for adequate prevention strategies. It has been advised that children are the highest priority population to influence when it comes to weight loss. It is more difficult to lose weight when one becomes an adult and there are more alternate weight gain prevention strategies at that young age than in the adult level. Schools and after-school care facilities have been identified as great points of intervention. In the past, the school lunches used to be highly unhealthy, they were rich in high in fat and low in fibre, fruits and vegetables. Now, the lunches have been scrutinized and it is mandatory for the schools to serve healthier meals. The challenge will be in getting the children to select those foods that are healthy.
Schools can play a critical role in educating the children and parents and changing the social norms. They have not been acting well as research statistics show that as at 2006, 98% of these schools were selling sodas and over 70% sold cookies and potato chips. The physical education time has also been limited as the teachers and parents fear that it will interfere with the time allocated to the core academic subjects. The teachers can increase the physical education hours in order to increase the level of sports participation in the children. To inform the parents, the teachers should indicate on the report cards the status of their children’s weight condition. Active modes of transport to and fro school should be encouraged such as walking, cycling and the use of public transport.
Research has shown that school policies that prohibit parents and students from bringing fast food into restaurants increase the levels of school lunch participation. Policies that restrict the student access to unhealthy snacks and drinks have shown that the students end up recording lower levels of BMI. There are arguments against these policies since it has been shown that the restriction of these foods will increase the allure of these foods.
The society cannot stop these policy measures in fear of what the children will feel and desire to do. Parents will have to take initiative to secure a better health future for their children by restricting television viewing and eating in front of the television. The parents can also restrict the children from watching certain ads from fast food companies that encourage high intake of unhealthy foods. The government has an important role to play. A small additional tax can be introduced on the high volume foods that have low nutritional value such as soft drinks and snacks. Food companies and restaurants should at all times engage in honest advertising and label their food appropriately, clearly indicating the contents of their products. Fast foods which are unhealthy are one of the most advertised products in the television. In countries such as Sweden, television advertising is not allowed for the children who are below 12 years of age.
In the area of advertising, there needs to be research conducted on food marketing to adults. There has been a lot of focus of food marketing to those children who are under 12 years. These adults are also affected greatly by food advertising. Research conducted on adult advertising showed that whereas children’s exposure to food advertising reduced, the adult exposure increased by 12%. Food advertising accounts for 26% of all the television advertising. Over 70% of the advertising relates to fast food restaurants and beverages which comprise of food with low nutritional value. With the amount of time that the youth spend on the internet and television, this could be a viable medium to challenge the youths to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
There should be advertising policies focused on the youth or adult advertising since they have a higher ability to influence the family’s family purchases. The argument supporting the higher focus on child advertising had been that children do not have the judgement capabilities to make decisions once they are exposed to the mass media advertising. However, it has been noted that parents increase their shopping by 60% when they are with their teenagers. Young adults have the ability to determine their consumption patterns. Food advertising exposure influence on the young adults has not really been addressed considering other forms of advertising that the youth are exposed to such as sexual permissiveness, drugs and violence. The focus has been on these other vices.
As the world develops, there can be a tendency to have an environment that does not encourage outdoor activities or sports. The community or public will therefore will have to take active steps to safeguard their environment. There should be a built environment that contains footpaths and trails. There should be designated cycle routes and paths to encourage cycling activities. The open parks and recreational places should be protected.
Parents play an important role as role models, having the opportunity to reward and punish certain activities at home and promoting certain values and attitudes. The practice of parents forcing the children to clean their plate may actually contribute to obesity (Rocca, 2). It makes the child continue feeding even when they are full. When the child has eaten adequate portions and it is seen they are no longer interested, it is good to declare that the meal time is over. Children generally eat when hungry unless they are sick.
When parents are overly restrictive on fast food choices, the children do not take it positively and they will feel neglected or deprived and this is bound to exacerbate the overweight problem. It is therefore important for the parents to have dialogue with their children and explain why they have made certain decisions. The parents in addition to the school activities can introduce family bonding times through bike rides and walks. These practices will influence the children to adopt a healthy lifestyle even in their future families.
In minorities, there are certain challenges in addressing the obesity situation. In these communities, there is the well-loved tradition of sharing large, high fat social meals. Furthermore, in these cultures, having a full figure is seen as being attractive and beautiful.
There have been calls by researchers to shift responsibility of controlling and preventing obesity from individuals to the government and policy changers. It is argued that when the default choices in the society are changed then it will definitely change the food options available to the public (Bronwel, et al, 12). If certain kinds of foods are banned, then the default will then be to eat the healthy food that is available.
There has been a struggle between the food industry and the health professionals. The food industry and the political allies have been arguing that obesity has many causes and there should be no finger-pointing against them. There should therefore be no food category that is blamed for the rise in obesity. They state that obesity is a matter of personal responsibility and the people should be encouraged and motivated to participate more in physical activities.
However, this default in thinking and reasoning should be changed since this was identified as the solution in the 1970s yet the obese statistics have been increasing over the years. When it comes to the treatment of obesity, there are several approaches that are available. There is cognitive-behavioural therapy, medication and surgery. Cognitive-behavioural therapy is a treatment method that teaches individuals to monitor themselves, identify and address any dysfunctional thoughts that they might have. They will need problem-solving skills to address the inter-personal stressors that lead them to engage in over-eating. These can be combined with low-calorie diets. Research has shown that these methods enable the individual to lose weight for a short-term or long-term period.
Those children and adults who undergo cognitive-behavioural therapy in the presence of their family members have recorded higher levels of success. A study conducted on children aged between 6 and 12 years showed that lifestyle interventions that included family-based exercise, nutrition and behaviour modification succeeded in lowering the body mass index. The success of these strategies shows that there is need to have these compassionate, effective and affordable treatments for the children and the adults.
However, treatment is limited because intensive treatment strategies such as surgery are not available for everyone. It is a costly procedure. Secondly, in overall, these treatments are costly for the economy. It also does not address the defaults when it comes to the society habits therefore obesity will continue increasing among the young population.
Conclusion
In order to have a healthy, working nation, there are certain steps that must be taken by all the relevant stakeholders to address the challenge of childhood and adult obesity. There will be need to focus to address the harsh realities in order to secure a better future.
Works Cited
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Dehghan, Mahshid, Akhtar-Danesh, Noori and Anwar, Merchant. “Childhood
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James, Wade. “The Challenge of Childhood Obesity”. International Journal of Paediatric
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Martino, Sara, Dillon, Kristin and Brennan Jordan. “The Rise of Obesity in Young
Women: Does the Media Have An Impact?” Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2.2(2008): 1-8. Print.
Rocca, Julia. “Childhood Obesity: Is Parental Nurturing to Blame?” The Internet
Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practices, 7.1(2009): 1-5. Print.
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