The Various Causes of Child Obesity

Why is there's a big epidemic of child and adolescent obesity? Obesity is a condition that is associated with having an excess amount of body fat, defined by genetic and environmental factors that are difficult to control when dieting. The state of Ohio has the 11th highest adult obesity rate in the nation. Ohio has the 6th highest obesity rate for youth ages 10 to 17.

Causes for Obesity

• Behavior

People need to have a dietary plan to maintain a healthy appearance, but it is so difficult to get healthy food because of the prices that no one is motivated to eat healthy.

• Community Environment

People make decisions based on their community; if they get out to exercise but people start making fun of them the obese people will not get motivated. This is why each community should have a gymnasium for obese people only, that way they all feel comfortable exercising.

• Family

If a person grows with an obese person they will most likely think that being obese is okay. Which is why everyone should introduce a healthy plan to family members, and that way the future generations will have the knowledge of knowing what is healthy and what is not.

• Lack of knowledge

Many people does not know how to maintain a healthy life, which is why every community should have a professional nutritionist and physical trainer to meet with the community members that would like to gain knowledge in the theme.

• Medical conditions and prescription drugs can cause weight gain:

Race-ethnicity, gender, age, and income all play a role into the complex health issue of obesity.

• Environmental Factors Facts

Environmental factors contribute to excess caloric intake and inadequate amounts of physical activity. The current high rates of obesity have been connected to an increase of snacking and eating her away from home, larger portion sizes, greater exposure to food advertising, limited access to physical activity opportunities. Scientists say that a single environmental factor is by far the biggest cause of obesity. The “food environment” has a huge impact on what you eat and how much. Scientists say that some communities in the U.S have unhealthy food environments in which highly fattening foods are cheap and plentiful. This problem is particularly serious in low-income neighborhoods who offer less healthy foods such as fruit, vegetables, and whole grains due to the cost. Obesity is fat under the skin and around organs. It is usually self treatable. It is a chronic disease that can last for years or even up to a lifetime.

Technology and our health

Overweight kids can suffer from poor self-esteem and even get depressed easily. The lifestyle, family history, and psychological factors can determine the health state for a minor.(side note)Our main factors are: 1)junk food 2)technology are making kids lazy. The kids that are bored, depressed, and stressed out kids tend to eat more and cope better with their emotions. The lack of proper physical activity is the problem to child obesity. The time young people spend on the screen, they can see the advertising of junk food and products, snacking while watching TV or movies, and a late-night screen that it can interfere with getting adequate sleep. Technology is a wonderful thing but it can also be our enemy, is doing more harm than good. The purpose of because we use technology is to keep the children occupied while the adults work, shop, drive, etc. Children spend about 7 hours per day watching TV, playing video games, and using the internet. Medical advisement is to use technology for a 1hr or 2 hrs per day. About 80% of the parents spend family time at watching or engaging with technology instead of doing outdoor activities. Since parents are working 50 hrs per day is difficult to coordinate to their kids schedule and it’s hard to do physical activities.

Good Advices

Parents need to be strict with their kids and set strong rules regarding video games, watching TV, or any other device that uses the internet. Instead read a book before bedtime. Play with the child during the day, to bond with the child and just have a great time as a family.
It keeps the children out of the technology just doing family activities. Keep them away during dinner time or any meal, and this also applies to the parents. Be the example!!!

Although people know that food is better for the body, most people do not come this way. This is a big problem; The health of the people is the most important thing in our world. However, there are many reasons for this unfortunate reality. First of all, many people do not know how to read the nutritional information. Therefore, many companies use the lack of knowledge to sell things with the 'healthy' label.

Many obese people do not have the availability to work, so they do not have an income. How is having healthy food at a high price helping these people? The truth is that no one is helping obese people like they should be helped, and this is why we want to pass this public policy that may give every person a better and equal quality of life. An advantage of lowering the prices of healthy food is that there will be more sales because people that could not buy these food because of low income will now have the opportunity of purchasing them. The advantage of making a facility for only obese people is that depression cases can decrease because no one will be making fun of obese people and they will feel motivated by seeing that they are not alone. A disadvantage of our policy may be that the stores will run out of healthy food faster than they did previously, but they will be making more money so it actually benefits them also.