Kevin To
Professor. Bañuelos
English 01B
3 May 2013
Obesity in Children
Over the past several decades, there has been an increase in childhood obesity. In the article, Childhood Obesity: Trends and Potential Causes, Patricia M. Anderson and Kristin F. Butcher writes, childhood obesity with its “associated health problems and cost” creates a rising concern “among health care professionals, policy experts, children’s advocates, and parents.”
What is obesity? It is a condition when a person has accumulated excess amount of body fat that it negatively affects their health. Another term for obesity is overweight. The Center for Disease and Control writes in the article, Childhood Obesity Facts, overweight is defined as “having excess body weight for a particular height from fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors.”
Childhood obesity has become a growing trend in the United States. Childhood obesity has more than “doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years.” (Center for Disease and Control, Childhood Obesity) In a statistic by the Center for Disease and Control, “The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010.”
There is no one factor that has lead to the increased in childhood obesity. Rather there are several “complementary changes that simultaneously increased” the obesity in children (Anderson and Butcher 19). Obesity is cause through “various genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors” (Center for Disease and Control, Childhood Obesity).
Plausible Causes
The increase of obesity in children has always been linked with fast food. A huge impact on childhood obesity was the advertisement of fast food. The American Psychological Association in the article, The Impact of Fast Food Advertising on Childhood Obesity, writes “research has found strong associations between increases in advertising for non-nutritious foods and...