Who's Responsible for Child Obesity

Who's Responsible for Child Obesity

Who’s Responsible for Child Obesity?
The days of neighborhood recreation hours are quickly being replaced by a technology industry that is rapidly creating new products itself. Instead of playing a game of football on their neighbor’s lawn, American children are replacing physical activity with television, video games, and the internet. According to Russell Murdock’s studies, 17.1 percent of children ages 2 to 19 were struggling with obesity in 2004. If this number continues at its current rate, by 2010 the obesity percentage among adolescents will be 20 percent (7). So we must ask the question, what is truly causing this increased percentage of overweight children? Some researchers believe the technology industry is to blame, while others argue that our nation’s sedentary lifestyle is the cause. However, in my opinion, the people whom we need to hold accountable are parents. Obesity is rising quickly and the only solution is a better influence within the home: the nutrition children receive, and the type of discipline their parents supply.
Electronic industries produce billions of gadgets and gismos daily, and ironically, parents purchase them at an even higher rate. What parents don’t realize, however, is that they’re contributing to the spread of a devastating disease. Tarek Ackad states in the UN Chronicle, “It is suggested that excessive screen-viewing—through television, computer, videos, electronic games, etc.—is a major factor contributing to the increased risk of obesity in children.” These devices have become the main source of entertainment in young lives across the United States. You can rarely drive through a neighborhood and find children playing outside. Instead, as you pass through, you will feel symptoms of deja vu because of the cookie cutter house designs that society is conforming to. This is where many houses on the same street are designed the same interiorly and exteriorly, and to top it off each is supplied with a small patch of grass...

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