Junk Food and Lack of Physical Activity Cause Childhood Obesity
“Currently, 21.8% of the total global population and 33.9% of the US population is obese” (“US and Global”). Obesity is a major health issue that needs to be addressed because of the vast effects it has on the human population health and mortality. Identifying the sources that influence obesity is essential to understand and tackle the issue. Research supports that junk food is a causative source of obesity. However, junk food alone is not the culprit to the issue. Advertising junk food to children goes hand-in-hand with the consumption of junk food that leads to childhood obesity. If childhood obesity is not addressed at a young age, the issue often continues to adulthood with numerous health and social consequences. To resolve the issue of obesity, the intervention of government is needed in schools and children associated environments.
The drastic increase of obese children worldwide is due to high calorie dense foods or Junk food. Junk food plays a key role in obesity because it is much cheaper and easier to obtain, than Healthy foods. Junk food ranges from chips, sodas, snacks, to fast food restaurant meals. Due to the fact that junk food is cheaper and easier to obtain, people become conditioned to eating it every day. Therefore, result of eating junk food and lack of physical activity is obesity. This is also seen in schools that decrease the budget for healthy foods and add junk food to the menus such as fries, pizzas, and burgers. According to Ashlesha Datar, the school meals that are not subject to federal nutritional standards can add food that is high in calories. As a result, high calorie foods account for much of the variation in the food environment across schools. “High calorie foods are available in a large share of schools, although the availability of these foods varies significantly across elementary, middle, and high schools. High calorie foods have a key role in obesity to...