Obesity In Children

Important Facts:  National Health Examination Survey: between 10 and 15% of children are obese  Can cause diseases: cardiovascular disease (CVD), and type II diabetes

Obesity The majority of children are becoming overweight or obese in the united states, it is not their fault; schools, fast-food restaurants, and parents are the leading causes and are responsible for children becoming overweight or obese.

2 Points That Contribute to Obesity in Children: Schools & Fast-Food Restaurants

#1: Schools The school’s curriculum, policies, services, and the community influence obese or overweight children

Curriculum School-based classes that focus on improving diet and physical activity levels These classes normally cover classroom components by motivating and teaching kids to choose healthier habits

Policies Every student should be required to participate in a physical education Senate Bill 1231 would make every public school student in K-8 th grade participate in physical education for the entire school year

Services The food services that schools provide need to prepare the fruits and vegetables to where they look edible The fat content in school lunches needs to be reduced Vending machines need to contain a smaller amount of junk food and instead promote fruits and vegetables

Community Children should be enrolled in an after- school program in which they will be able to go outside and play in a safe environment since the community that they live in is not always safe.

#2: Fast-Food Restaurants From 1972 to 1995, the total number of fast food restaurants had more than doubled, and there are currently more than 247,115 nationwide.

Study: Children’s Hospital Boston, the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Harvard School of Public Health Collected data from 6,212 children and found out that children who ate fast food consumed more total and saturated fat, more total carbohydrates and added sugars, less dietary fiber, and more calories than children who did not eat fast food

Fast food restaurants do not include nutrition information, they super-size unhealthy meals, and provide children with false advertisements.

Nutrition Information Do not provide nutritional information on their menus, and the few that do, either place it very small in a hard-to-see place or on inconvenient web sites Nutrition labels need to be put onto all menus at fast food restaurants

“Whopper value meal” For $4.19, you get 1,340 calories! Two-thirds of the calories that adults need in a single day

Super-size Me! Very low additional cost Encouraging children to buy larger portions Marion Nestle, head of nutrition and food studies at New York University – ““It’s very interesting that the larger-portion business started at exactly the same time that obesity rates started to go up”

Counter Argument: McDonald’s claims that they are not promoting products that the community says are unhealthful But, this is not true, the super-sized Big Mac value meal contains double the amount of calories the body can take in at one sitting By creating the Big Mac value meal and then calculating the nutritional facts on their website, it produced 1400 calories, 55 (g) of fat, 80 (mg) of cholesterol, 1360 (mg) of sodium, and 202 carbohydrates McDonald’s website proves them wrong!

Fast-Food Advertisements Children are more likely to eat foods that are advertised Fast food consumption has grown due to a multi-billion dollar advertising campaign Influences children with the goal of planting a fast food habit