Let's Move - Childhood Obesity

Let’s Move – Childhood Obesity Prevention from Pregnancy and Infancy Onward a. Article Citation
Name: Let’s Move – Childhood Obesity Prevention from Pregnancy and Infancy Onward
Date Published: April 22, 2010
Authors: Janet M. Wojcicki, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Melvin B. Heyman, M.D., M.P.H.
Page Numbers: 1457-1459 b. The main idea of this article focuses on First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity. The authors go into detail on how it can be improved to incorporate pregnant women, infants, and pre-school children to gain maximum benefits at curbing the epidemic of childhood obesity rates in the United States. c. Before discussing facts of the article, I feel that it is important that we become familiar with the platform of the “Let’s Move” campaign. The campaign’s strategies are changing nutritional labeling of products by the United States Department of Agriculture, improving the nutritional standards of school lunches, increasing children’s opportunities for exercise and physical activity, and improving access to better quality foods in the U.S. This campaign is effective at targeting individuals as well as larger communities. However, the authors list some important information that should be considered while trying to prevent childhood obesity. Also something to consider when reading this article is the definitions of overweight and obese. These words are used interchangeably in our country and most people don’t have a clear understanding of their differences. While they both refer to excess weight in humans, overweight simply means a condition where the person weighs over his normal weight according to his height, age and sex, and a BMI number between 25 and 29.9. Someone who is obese suffers from a bodily condition marked by excessive generalized deposition and storage of fat, with a BMI number above 30. The first of the important facts that the authors provided was the fact that almost one third of U.S. children over two years of age are already overweight or obese, and among low-income children between two and five years who are on federally funded health programs, 39% are overweight or obese. These statistics are devastating to our young children in this country, and while Mrs. Obama is trying hard to make an impact, reviews show that interventions in schools or within the home have little success in preventing weight gain in children. As a result, obese children as young as three years old have high levels of inflammatory markers that are believed to be linked to heart disease later in life. This is a huge problem, and one thing that the authors believe Mrs. Obama could do to improve her program is revamp it to target those under two years old and preschoolers, via parental assistance and providing further information to parents to help them make positive choices for their children. To back up their statements, the author’s list factors contributing to childhood obesity stemming from their parents, such as excessive maternal weight gain, smoking during pregnancy, shorter durations of breast-feeding and not enough sleep during pregnancy. Scientists believe that such habits could possibly influence the development of hypothalamic circuits that regulate body weight, endocrine pancreatic function, and other metabolic programming throughout the body. The second fact that the authors prevent are the success rates of interventions. Interventions designed to reduce excessive weight gain, smoking, and breast-feeding longer during pregnancy has the ability to prevent obesity in children before it occurs. Studies have shown that early interventions can potentially prevent the development of obesity in school-age children, along with associated health conditions. What seems to be a huge factor in child-obesity is high pregnancy weight. Scientists have found that the risk of having an overweight child at age seven was 48% higher among women who gained more weight than the recommended amount. The third fact the authors provide in their article is the huge benefit breast-feeding can have for your child and preventing obesity. Along with maintaining a healthy pregnancy weight, the World Health Organization has also said that the long-term benefits of breast-feeding include reduced risk of obesity and type II diabetes, as well as lower blood pressures and cholesterol levels in adult life. However, the actual rate of exclusive breast-feeders is much lower than the desired rate. Within the United States subgroups of black, young, and single mothers whose children are at risk for obesity, rates of breast-feeding exclusively at three months are under 20%, while the Healthy People 2010 target was much higher at 60%. d. This article has a few different ideas that are also found in the textbook. A few weeks ago we discussed the use of teratogens that have negative effects on growing fetuses. One of them we discussed was smoking, which has the ability to cause low birth weight, premature delivery, birth defects and even stillbirth. Going back to the article, the authors suggested the “Let’s Move” campaign team up with other existing organizations such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to make information regarding smoking and tobacco use more readily available to pregnant women. By now you would think that almost everyone in this country knows the dangers of smoking while pregnant, but there are still women out there who either aren’t aware or don’t take the warnings seriously. By teaming up, both organizations could have a greater impact on who they are trying to reach. The book and article also touch on appropriate weight gain during pregnancy. While the book focuses more on malnutrition in the mother and gaining enough weight, the article goes in the other direction by focusing on women who gain too much weight and the negative impacts it has on their child and the odds of obesity. Either way, it is best to find a happy medium that is appropriate for your body and sets your baby up with a healthy start to life. e. When it comes to biasness in the article, I didn’t find any. I have read bias articles before and usually they are pretty apparent to me when someone is trying to push a particular view or agenda, but this was not one of those cases. It was a very fact oriented, informational article that kept on subject without interjecting anything to sway you in one direction or another. It is what I would expect to find when searching for a scholarly article. The authors are suggesting ways to help improve the “Let’s Move” campaign, but not in a negative light that sheds any insight into their opinions of Michelle Obama or political preferences. f. Before reading this article, I wasn’t familiar with the “Let’s Move” campaign. I went into its objectives in the beginning of this analysis, but let’s take a closer look. According to their website, “Let’s Move! is a comprehensive initiative, launched by the First Lady, dedicated to solving the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation, so that children born today will grow up healthier and able to pursue their dreams. Combining comprehensive strategies with common sense, Let's Move! is about putting children on the path to a healthy future during their earliest months and years. Giving parents helpful information and fostering environments that support healthy choices. Providing healthier foods in our schools. Ensuring that every family has access to healthy, affordable food. And, helping kids become more physically active.” Besides looking into the campaign and its goals, there weren’t really any new terms or concepts that I hadn’t heard of before. I enjoyed this article because it was written in a way that the average Joe could read without feeling completely lost in the language. g. I think every person in America, regardless of whether or not they are a parent should find relevancy in this article. Our country is one of the fattest in the world, and if we have an opportunity to prevent that with a few lifestyle changes, there should be no hesitation. Although I do not yet have any children, I am a firm believer that breast-feeding is best, and am pleased to find that the study revealed that that is true. Although I, as well as my extended family on both sides is thin and fit, one of my biggest fears is that I will have unhealthy children because in today’s world it is so easy to give in to the social norm of eating out often and not very healthy. Truly what is being said in this article is not extremely hard to achieve, and setting your child up for success while still in the womb should be incentive enough for mothers as well as fathers to change their lifestyles.