Preventing Child Obesity

Nicholas Hopkins
EN102
11/23/12
Preventing Obesity As a citizen of the United States, being aware of our future is inevitable. There are many things we do in precaution for our future’s well-being. Statistics show that obesity rates are on a continuous rise which many people are not aware of. Everyone has their own opinions and may look at our country’s obesity problem in different ways. This problem is not just affecting our future, but our children’s futures as well. It is completely unfair to bring a child into this world and settle them into part of the obese population. This epidemic is ruining people’s lives and giving people early death sentences. Bringing children into this world with a chance of being obese is not acceptable. Ways to prevent child obesity include adjusting eating habits, increasing fitness and exercise, and raising awareness. This can be done through proper parenting and with the help of schools. Preventing obesity will increase life expectancy and reduce the amount of health issues related with being overweight. These ideas of prevention come with many different key terms and obstacles to overcome. It’s nearly impossible to be against child obesity unless one believes it’s a hopeless cause or is satisfied with their life threatening habits. Obesity can be maintained, reduced, and prevented through the futures of our children. Have you ever thought of obesity and its background? Many people may not think of how obesity came about when trying to prevent it. In history classes we learned how being big and fat gave meaning. Being obese hundreds of years ago meant you were healthy, wealthy, and beautiful. Obviously that is not how we look at obesity today. If you live in the United States, you will notice that many people are overweight and obese. Obesity has been a growing problem in the United States. Many adults continue unhealthy eating habits and poor exercise and nutrition. These habits are inherited by our children. If an overweight or obese individual gives birth to a child, what makes you think that child will not too become overweight or obese? Preventing child obesity should be the bigger focus rather than adult obesity. This does not mean adults who are overweight or obese are already doomed. This statement suggests that preventing obesity in children at an early age is easier and will make more of an impact through their lives. In an article about preventing child obesity, by Laure DeMattia and Shannon Lee Denney, the authors discuss the history of child obesity and successful efforts towards childhood obesity. The article begins with a brief history of child obesity. The authors state that child obesity continues to be an increasing health problem and that obesity rates have tripled since the 1960’s (DeMattia and Denney 86). The authors also discuss how excess weight in children may put them in danger for many diseases. Most importantly, they state that if a child is obese at the age of four, he or she will have a 20% chance of being obese or overweight as an adult (DeMattia and Denney 85). Preventing childhood obesity will cancel out the risk of children becoming obese or overweight when they enter adulthood. Starting with the children is the most significant way to prevent our country’s obesity epidemic. Childhood obesity is a problem that can be used to solve the greater obesity problem. To solve and prevent child obesity we must find and use methods and ideas. Many successful methods that are used come with terms that need to be further defined. We all know that nutrition, fitness, and exercise are very important and needed for this prevention. But we all might think differently when hearing these terms. Nutrition may be understood as dieting and/or eating healthy. Nutrition is defined by the Webster Dictionary as “the act or process of nourishing or being nourished” (Webster). This definition does not touch base with the facts of nutrition that include calories, daily value, high-fructose corn syrup, and etcetera (Webmd). Nutrition includes many factors towards eating. Some of its factors lead to healthy and proper nutrition and some lead to malnutrition. Malnutrition is the same thing as poor or bad nutrition. Rather than saying just ‘nutrition’ is needed to prevent child obesity, we must understand that proper nutrition is the right term. Terms such as exercise fitness are very related but different. Just because someone exercises does not mean they are fit. One gains fitness by constantly working all of their muscles and by following proper nutrition. Exercise is working your muscles in strenuous ways. To reach proper fitness you need exercise and practice proper nutrition. Obesity is strongly linked to fitness. When one is fit, it is impossible to be obese and vise versa. Obesity is the state of having excess fat (Webster). Many people may have excess fat but nowhere close to obese. To understand the prevention of child obesity, one must completely understand what obese is. Many Americans are overweight and have poor dieting problems. But obesity is defined by one’s body mass index. Webster defines body mass index, otherwise known as BMI, as “a measure of body fat that is the ratio of the weight of the body in kilograms to the square of its height in meters”. In adults, a BMI of 25-29.9 indicates they are overweight, but a BMI of over 30 indicates if one is obese (Webster). Wrong ideas and thoughts are brought about obesity. The dictionary definition of obesity is appropriate in order understand the terms of prevention and to lead wrong ideas away. What is child obesity doing and why is it happening? These two important questions cover a lot of ground. Child obesity is the same thing as obesity, but obviously in children. Children who are more than overweight are considered obese. The bad habits that lead to obesity are also leading children’s futures in a bad direction. Diseases and dropped rates of life expectancy tag along with one who is obese. Child obesity can be blamed and caused for many reasons. Poor nutrition and low physical activity are the top leading factors. These factors do not just show up though. Parents and schools are leading causes to these factors. As much as children may love their mom and dad, their mom and dad may be the ones harming their bodies. Parents are responsible for feeding their children. They can also be blamed for not provisioning physical activity for their children (Management of Child Obesity). Malnutrition and poor fitness will cause weight gain. This weight gain is the result of excess calorie intake compared to the amount of calories used (Patel 84). The lifestyles that support this weight gain can be seen in parents and schools. Parents who watch an excessive amount of television may be the reason their child does so as well. Watching television usually includes sitting or lying down with no physical activity. Parents also may live in unsafe areas which leads to their children staying indoors more often. A lot of parents also spend a lot of time at work where they are unable to watch and feed their children properly (Patel 82-85). Many parents who work constantly do not have the time to cook a healthy meal. Parents who do not promote physical activity are harming their children’s bodies. Many parents prepare or buy fast meals for their children because they have no time. Fast food restaurants and quickly prepared meals usually do not contain the proper nutrition children need. Children need exercise and proper nutrition, but are parents the only ones to blame? “Environment, socioeconomic class, genetics, and various disease states (including psychological disorders)” can heavily influence the amount of exercise a child gets and how they are fed (Patel 82-85). Other than homes which are controlled by the parents, schools impact a child’s chance of becoming obese as well. Kids spend most of their time at school. Most kids attend school five days a week which usually ranges from around five to six hours a day. That is over thirty hours a week which kids are at school. Obviously if a school provides healthy lunches and requires a fair amount of physical activity, there should not be as many problems with kids being overweight and obese. In every state, schools are required to offer meal plans that include free or reduced cost food. These meal plans contain “minimum nutritional guidelines”. Although they may meet nutritional guidelines, it does force children to eat them. Children are not being forced to eat the healthy part of the meal and also have access to foods that are not on the meal plans. Foods that are not on the meal plans do not have to meet any federal government requirement and could be the only thing a child wants to eat at school. These foods can be very unhealthy especially if it is the only thing a child eats. The unhealthy foods that are not on meal plans cost more and benefits companies and schools more than meal plan foods. One more thing that may really open eyes is the places meal plan foods come from. Since the meal plan is funded by the government, the government decides where to get the foods. Most of these meal plans include high amounts of meats and dairy and few amounts of fruits and vegetables. Meats and dairies are being overproduced to keep the agricultural industry from falling. In 2003, two thirds of the meal plans were meats and dairy products. This led to 85% of schools not meeting the minimum government requirement for fat percentages in school lunches (Patel). School food requirements need be changed in order to help the prevention of child obesity. Foods and nutrition are not the only things leading to obesity. There are no national guidelines for physical education in schools, but instead the states create their own guidelines. Most states do not require a lot of physical education and physical activities (Patel). This can be somewhat understandable because schools are meant for education and learning. Though my own experience, most of my physical activities happened outside of school because of my parents. Children’s parents who are not putting their kids in physical activity programs may not be to blame. Many sports and programs cost money which parents may not be able to afford. Many parents also do not have the time to watch their kids outside while they are partaking physical activities. So many children are only getting exercise through the minimal school required activities and by their own means outside of school. Anyone in their right mind should not promote child obesity. Some people though may not believe child obesity is a big problem only because some children are overweight. What they do not realize is that the child obesity problem is on a rise. The problem is not being helped by those who have the wrong ideas of causes and solutions to child obesity. Many people do not realize that obesity begins as a child. It is not something that just happens as an adult. Being properly informed about obesity and how to identify its causes and effects can help prevent the problem. To prevent the problem further, we as a country need to raise awareness about obesity along with its causes and most importantly, the solutions. While we all know that good things do not come easily, one can relate such a phrase to preventing child obesity. Stopping child obesity is a very good thing that will not be done so easily. Preventing child obesity will crucially help the obesity problem we have as a country. Preventing child obesity can be done in many ways, but all together the ideas and methods will create a solution. The two major ways to prevent childhood obesity are also the ways that children become obese. Through exercise and nutrition, a child’s health can be seriously affected. Proper exercise and proper nutrition with children will crush their chances at becoming obese. As stated before, parents and schools play a huge role on whether those factors are put into play. Parents should be mostly responsible for these factors as they are the ones who raise their children and provide for them. Schools and communities should not be left out at all. Children spend most of their time in a school, community or home. These three places are where solutions need to be put in place. A community is where a child will grow up and learn. Their family and friends revolve around them and make up their community. Obesity can be partially prevented in these communities. Most children will eat at home or at school so we can focus about the physical activities in communities. It is not the school or parents job to build communities. The government creates these communities and controls housing and building. To help prevent child obesity, government funding is needed to create safe and playful areas for children. By creating parks, playgrounds, sports fields, and anything else that will promote physical activity in communities, obesity is being prevented. Having these facilities available to the public plays a huge role on outdoor activity. Our government that funds these facilities must also make them safe in order to create more attraction. Governments must also make these communities close to schools. The program Safe Routes to School, otherwise known as SR2S, is a national program to develop projects in communities. These projects include promoting bicycle and pedestrian safety in order to make kids walk to school (DeMattia and Denney 85). Making kids walk to closer schools will affect the obesity and overweight problem. Communities and programs like this are needed to promote outdoor activity for children to better their chances against becoming overweight or obese. From kindergarten through high school, kids spend a great time in classrooms and school buildings. We all know how school foods are not as good as they seem and how physical education is not much of a requirement. This must be changed to help prevent child obesity. Most high schools offer a lot of sport teams which kids can join and many other outdoor activities. Many students do not take advantage of these physical activities and lack the encouragement to do so. Schools nationwide need to push students toward physical activities as well as create physical activities for everyone to participate in. Students who do not appreciate the competition of sports may thoroughly enjoy workout classes in which they learn about and obtain fitness. These ideas about promoting physical activity in schools will help with preventing child obesity. But schools are playing a bigger role towards obesity. The foods and meal plans they are serving need to be reevaluated to become more nutritious. Also, unhealthy foods that are being offered aside from meal plans need to be limited. Snack and junk food availability creates students to only eat what tastes good rather than what is good for them. By increasing the nutritious quality of school foods and decreasing the amount of junk foods available, schools will help prevent overweight and obese kids. Parenting may be one of the most exhausting jobs to hold. Caring and providing for a child while doing so for yourself can be a lot on your plate. This partially shows why parents are so important towards the prevention of child obesity. Without care and nurture a child cannot grow and be protected. Many parents have the right idea to care for their child, but many also do not fulfill the standards needed to help prevent their child from becoming overweight or obese. Parents need to be informed about proper nutrition. If they feed their children healthier foods, obesity problems for kids will diminish. Approximately 3.8% of students in the U.S. were home schooled in the spring of 2010 (Ray 3). This means that the other 96.2% of students are in a school away from home. These schools and students’ parents need to team up. Schools, who are regulated by the government, need to reach parents about proper nutrition. Education may be key for students, but parents can also benefit from it as well. If parents can be properly educated by school systems about nutrition, obesity rates are more than probable to drop. This idea may seem to have flaws, but it is the best way to help parents feed their children properly. According to Pate and Andrews who wrote for the Nation Middle School Association, parent involvement with schools produces several positive outcomes. Parental involvement is low in many cases but it can help students be productive, active, nutritious, educated and so forth (Pate and Andrews). All parents are required to have parent teacher conferences. During these conferences, parents need to be educated about proper nutrition. Overweight and obese children need to be helped. Their parents may be the ones to blame, but blaming them will not help prevent this epidemic. The more power schools have over parent involvement, the less likely children will become obese. Having physical activities for children is just as important as feeding them properly. If a child is fed right, but sits on a couch all day she or he will not be using the energy they are getting from foods. Lily Welsh, who wrote an article about calories, informs readers that burning the same amount or more of calories than you eat will maintain or drop your weight (Welsh). Burning calories is only done by physical activity. Obviously the more physical activity someone does, the more calories they will burn. Parents must combine healthy eating with physical activity for their child to prevent overweightness or obesity. Parents should be informed by schools about the need for physical activity the same way as they should be informed for nutrition. Parents and schools need to promote and make time for more physical activities for children. Children spend about 34 hours a week in school and about 74 hours at home (University of Michigan 7-8). There are 168 hours in one week and children are spending 108 hours either at home or at school on average. This does not account for students who already spend hours doing after school activities or study groups. If 16-33% of children are obese, what makes anyone think that they do not spend more time sitting around at home? (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry). The amount of time spent children spend doing physical activities need to be increased. By forming a strong and mandatory bond between schools and parents, children will effectively have more physical activity. Obesity begins around the ages of 5 and 6 or during adolescence (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry). According to the law, children must begin school at the age of 5 (Uconn Global). This correlation between the two is only part of the reasons why obesity should be stopped at an early age. Children are mostly controlled by their parents and spend most of their time at home or at school. These two key factors play the biggest role. If obesity can be prevented in children before they reach adolescence, obesity rates will drop dramatically. Because schools and parents are the biggest factors in a child’s life, they are the two main targets that need to be adjusted in order to prevent child obesity. This epidemic is not slowing down, so obviously the school systems and parenting techniques that are being used are not working. Obese children are being put against many health risks. They are surely being bullied and emotionally drained as well without acceptance. Of course everyone should be accepted for who they are. Child obesity, however, is not acceptable and needs immediate prevention to protect the common health of our country.

Works Cited
AACAP. "Obesity in Children and Teens." Facts for Familes. AACAP, Mar. 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
DeMattia, L., and S. Lee Denney. "Childhood Obesity Prevention: Successful Community-Based Efforts." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 615.1 (2008): 83-99. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.
Hofferth, Sandra L., and John F. Sandberg. How American Children Spend Their Time. Rep. no. 00-458. Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan, 2000. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.
Jones, Rachel A., PhD, Jannet M. Warren, PhD, Anthony D. Okely, EdD, Clare E. Collins, PhD, Phllip J. Morgan, PhD, Dylan P. Cliff, PhD, Tracy Burrows, PhD, Jane Cleary, BSc, and Louise A. Baur, PhD. "A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial for the Management of Child Obesity." Process Evaluation of the Hunter Illawarra Kids Challenge Using Parent Support Study 917-927 11.6 (2009): n. pag. Web. 22 Nov. 2012.
"Nutrition Label Glossary: Definitions of Nutrition Fact Terms." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/definitions-glossary>.
"NutritionAbout Our Definitions: All Forms of a Word (noun, Verb, Etc.) Are Now Displayed on One Page." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nutrition>.
Pate, Elizabeth, and Gayle Andrews. "Parent Involvement." NMSA Research Summary. Association for Middle Level Education, June 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
Patel, Gopi, Zain Syed, and Thomas Reutzel. "ICAN: Infant, Child, & Adolescent Nutrition." Obesity, Children, Medications, and Pharmacy 3.2 (2011): 82-86. Sage Journals. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.
Ray, Brian D., PhD. Http://www.nheri.org/HomeschoolPopulationReport2010.pdf. Rep. NHERI, 3 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
University of Connecticut. "Schooling for Children." UConn Community Resources. University of Connecticut, n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. <http://www.educationusa.state.gov/>.
Welsh, Lily. "Calories Eaten Versus Calories Burned." LIVESTRONG.COM. Livestrong, 10 June 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.

Works Cited
AACAP. "Obesity in Children and Teens." Facts for Familes. AACAP, Mar. 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. This online article by AACAP gives a great understanding of child obesity. The webpage gave me great data to represent my argument for the prevention of child obesity. This page gives basic ideas of obesity rather than some of the other articles i have used that give a thorough report
DeMattia, L., and S. Lee Denney. "Childhood Obesity Prevention: Successful Community-Based Efforts." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 615.1 (2008): 83-99. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. These two authors have written many health articles including this one. In this article, they are spot on and properly address the problem of child obesity. The article is based on the prevention of child obesity. in that case, this article gave me plenty of examples that deal with the problem of obesity as well as many statistics.
Hofferth, Sandra L., and John F. Sandberg. How American Children Spend Their Time. Rep. no. 00-458. Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan, 2000. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. This thorough report by Hofferth and Sandberg shows an amazing amount of credibility. These two authors do social research for the University of Michigan and completely understand my topic. I used this report to analyze how children spend their time and related that to child obesity. The report does go against my clause in certain ways. I used this article to point out that homes and schools are where children spend most of their time, but the report also shows that children spend a good chunk of time away from the two. Unlike other sources, this report is not very based on child obesity but the observation of where children spend their time.
Jones, Rachel A., PhD, Jannet M. Warren, PhD, Anthony D. Okely, EdD, Clare E. Collins, PhD, Phllip J. Morgan, PhD, Dylan P. Cliff, PhD, Tracy Burrows, PhD, Jane Cleary, BSc, and Louise A. Baur, PhD. "A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial for the Management of Child Obesity." Process Evaluation of the Hunter Illawarra Kids Challenge Using Parent Support Study 917-927 11.6 (2009): n. pag. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. This well written article is produced by several credible authors. Though this article is very credible, I did not use much of it as it didn't support my ideas. Most of the sources I have used have a general support towards my clause, but this article does not reach the same point as my thesis.
"Nutrition Label Glossary: Definitions of Nutrition Fact Terms." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. <http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/definitions-glossary>. The webmd dictionary can be very credible, but very broad. The definitions provided are very straight forward. I used this source to give a simple understanding of a key word. Without defining the key words, my argument would not be as strong. Compared to other sources, this site is very broad and is not very detailed.
"NutritionAbout Our Definitions: All Forms of a Word (noun, Verb, Etc.) Are Now Displayed on One Page." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nutrition>. The webster dictionary can be used by anyone to grab a straight forward definition. Just like the webmd website, this dictionary helped define my key terms in order to support my clause. Without the proper definition to my key terms, I would not be able to put the definition into its necessary meaning i needed.
Pate, Elizabeth, and Gayle Andrews. "Parent Involvement." NMSA Research Summary. Association for Middle Level Education, June 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. Both of these authors are on the NMSA's board of research. They conduct thorough research for school systems. This webpage can be used by anyone to understand how important parent involvement can be. This page does not support my clause exactly, but it does add very detailed support. My other sources are mostly based around children and obesity, but this source is completely based on schools and parent involvement.
Patel, Gopi, Zain Syed, and Thomas Reutzel. "ICAN: Infant, Child, & Adolescent Nutrition." Obesity, Children, Medications, and Pharmacy 3.2 (2011): 82-86. Sage Journals. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. The three authors who wrote this article base their research on obesity. This source is most important out of all my sources. It compares nutrition and physical activity to obesity. None of my other sources support my clause as this one does. The intended audience could be anyone interested in how obesity comes about.
Ray, Brian D., PhD. Http://www.nheri.org/HomeschoolPopulationReport2010.pdf. Rep. NHERI, 3 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2012. The author of this report is also the president of the NHERI. This report is about home schooling and the research of how many children are actually being home schooled. The intended audience could be those interested in statistics about children being home schooled. This source helped me produce credible statistics about home schooling to show that most children are not home schooled and that schools have a huge impact on obesity.
University of Connecticut. "Schooling for Children." UConn Community Resources. University of Connecticut, n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2012. <http://www.educationusa.state.gov/>. This article created by UConn is very credible. I used this source to only show what age student are required to begin schooling. The intended audience for this website are those who seek information about schooling and how to enroll their children. Compared to my other sources, this source is off topic and only relates to child obesity because of my clause.
Welsh, Lily. "Calories Eaten Versus Calories Burned." LIVESTRONG.COM. Livestrong, 10 June 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. The author of this article thoroughly describes the use and meaning of calories. This article is important to my clause because my audience can see how physical activity is necessary to burn calories. The intended audience for this website could be anyone seeking medical knowledge about calories and how they are gained and burned.