Childhood obesity is a increasing trouble in our community some are calling it an epidemic. As the following chart indicates, the prevalence of overweight children and adolescents has improved given that 1963. What are the reasons? Who is to blame?
Figure 1. Prevalence of overweight amongst kids and adolescents ages 6-19 years
NOTE: Excludes pregnant ladies starting with 1971-74. Pregnancy status not accessible for 1963-65 and 1966-70. Data for 1963-65 are for children 6-11 years of age data for 1966-70 are for adolescents 12-17 years of age, not 12-19 years.
SOURCE: CDC/NCHS, NHES and NHANES.
Even though researching obesity in childhood, I found a lot of stats that gave dollar figures, expenses of obesity on our society. The fees are staggering but hard to recognize. I can not wrap my head about billion dollar figures. The Department of Well being and Human Services estimates the price of obesity in kids and adults to be $117 billion, $61 billion of that is in direct medical charges.
Substantially of the blame falls on the parents. The likelihood of a child becoming obese is significantly greater if a single or even more of his parents are obese. Other aspects that lead to children becoming obese include things like more than eating, lack of workout, over consumption of the incorrect kinds of food such as snack food and processed quick food and metabolism. One other aspect to contemplate is advertising and marketing and the influence quick food advertising campaigns have on children.
Serving sizes have grown over the final 20 years. Many people now, especially youngsters, are accustomed to sizeable size servings or super size servings. The advertising and marketing of soda and quick food makes it challenging for us,as adults, to pass up the "deal". When a medium soda charges 90 cents and the massive which is 50% bigger than the medium is only 10 cents alot more, how can you refuse? If it is tough for adults to pass up the deal how can we anticipate children to refrain from having the bigger portion. After all, bigger is much better! Perfect? Take this Portion Distortion quiz from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute .
There are a number of reasons why youngsters do not physical exercise as significantly at present as they did years ago. The child's physical atmosphere could possibly be a contributing factor. Those in urban setting could possibly have no space to play. There might possibly be a lack of open space. There might possibly be crime or targeted traffic that inhibit the kid from running about.
The child may live in a suburb. A child in a suburb, as result of urban sprawl, could not be in a position to walk or ride their bike to school due to distance and lack of bike paths. These young children might be left unsupervised following school due to each parents operating. These young children can be told to stay indoors. These "Latchkey" kids play video games and watch tv. In the old days these youngsters might have been allowed to go outside to play mainly because Mom was household, supervising. There just weren't as a large number of electronics 20 years ago. Video games had been not as prevalent. Cable Tv and satellite tv didn't televise cartoons 24 hours a day on ten unique channels. The kid can not have function models to appear up to. The child's parents may be obese and they don't model fantastic physical exercise or healthy living habits.
Kids at present have it rough. I know, as adults we tell our children how difficult it was back in the 70's and 80's but genuinely, we did not have the distractions children have currently. This was element one particular of a two element weblog about childhood obesity. Next week I will talk about the advertising of quick food and snack food and role we play as parents to maintain our children wholesome and happy.
