English 101 March 7th, 2013 Children’s Overweight There’s a popular and erroneous belief that children is obese because they consume big amounts of food; indeed it might be one of the reasons. According to Niamh Mullen “child are overweight because they don’t do any physical activity. ” Obesity is a serious issue among children and there are complex reasons that can cause it, principally by poor eating habits, lack of any physical activity and family history of obesity.
Overweight in children is not being a few pounds higher than normal, “obesity in childhood is when a kid is 10% higher than what their weight is supposed to be”(Facts for families). Being overweight during childhood is the easiest issue to recognize talking in medical terms, but the most difficult to treat due to the child’s preferences of food or because of the habits he has been learned during his lifetime. The first major cause of this broad issue is the poor diet and unhealthy habits child have. Children don’t know how to distinguish between a healthy food or a healthy habit, parents need to lead their children since they are born.
During the first years of life, children need nutrients to structure themselves and get defenses; indeed one of the most common error parents commit is taking them to eat fast food or showing them that fast food has pretty good taste but no healthy benefits. Fast food is not the only food that causes children being obese, but also what type of food is prepared at home and how it is prepared. It is obvious that food prepared with a lot of oil will increase the probabilities of being overweight, or sometimes the snacks that people buy for their kids.
One might think that just because they are young, they can eat everything they want without any consequences but the only result from this is making their child overweight. Childhood obesity is not only caused by the type of food eaten with their parents, or in home, but also in school. One needs to know that type of food kids are consuming in their school. The other major cause of childhood overweight is the lack of exercise or any physical activity. Kids now prefer to stay in home watching tv or playing video games eating some snacks rather than go outside and play any sport or any game with their friends, or maybe riding the bicycle.
They also prefer staying at home rather than practicing any sport in school. Once a kid is obese, it’s harder for them to practice any type of exercise due to the skills or fear of not doing it well. Usually what parents tend to do for their obese children is to moderate their dietary intake; well according to Professor Richard Telford focusing in restricting dietary intake on kids will not disappear obesity, people need to find other ways to make kids practice physical activities. “Once children become obese, they don’t do any exercise because of discomfort” says Tim Grill.
By addressing physical activity not only includes any kind of exercise or practicing a sport, but also walking to school, or to a friend’s house, children prefer moving in a car rather then walking or cycling. Two of the main causes of childhood obesity are the lack of exercise and physical activities, poor eating and unhealthy habits, and the third cause being the family history of obesity or obesity being transmitted through genes. Most of the times when a child have descendants with obesity, or obese history, an 80% of the kids are obese because of these factors. Although weight problems runs in families not all children with history or descendants of obesity will be overweight, it may be an increased risk, but this can be linked to the shared family behaviors”(Children’s Health, Obesity in Children). Having obese family history can be a great factor contributing in a child’s weight, but it’s not always the case. A friend of mine had severe overweight during childhood, their parents were obese, and also their grandparents were obese. For the times in which the friend of mine went from junior high to high school he went into a severe diet and started doing a lot of exercise and he stopped being obese.
According to the Better health Channel, child’s diet depends a lot on the family eating habits. Some overweight parents care less of their children being obese than parents who maintain a healthy life. So definitely, this can be a great factor of how parents could affect on a kid’s process of becoming obese; looking every family member being obese and not considering it wrong or eating what parents are used to eat every single day. Family with tendency to be overweight needs to be even more conscious of what their children consume, and also what their family consumes.
Basically, childhood obesity is mainly caused by the poor eating habits, lack of exercise, and because of the family history of obesity. There’s no concrete way to avoid obesity among children, but there’s many ways parents can manage obesity in their kids, or even children themselves change their habits. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent there’s many ways in which people can manage obesity among children like changing eating habits, making better food selection, control amounts of food consumed, do not use food as rewards, etc.
Not only changing food habits will help in modifying children’s weight, but also being more physically active as a family! It is necessary to increase physical activity in children like encouraging kids to play outside, find activities that a kid founds to me fun and available for their skills, always support kids with their good things, not only referring to their overweight problems. Citations American Academy of Child and Adolescent. “Obesity in Children and Teens. ” http://www. aacap. org/cs/root/facts_for_families/obesity_in_children_and_teens. March 2011). Benaroch, Roy. “Obesity in Children. ” http://children. webmd. com/guide/obesity-children? page=2. (July 2012) Better Health Channel. “Obesity in Children – Causes. ” http://www. betterhealth. vic. gov. au/bhcv2/bhcarticles. nsf/pages/Obesity_in_children. (February 2012) Mullen, Niamh. “Lack of Exercise Leading Cause of Childhood Obesity over poor diet. ” http://www. medicalobserver. com. au/news/lack-of-exercise-leading-cause-of-childhood-obesity-over-poor-diet. (November 2012).
