OBESITY
Obesity is a medical state in which the body fats accumulate excessively to a point where it has a negative effect on the person. Once a person has a BMI that exceeds 30 then one is considered as an obese. This is measured by the use of the Body mass index (BMI) where the measurement is gotten from dividing the weight of a person by the square of the height of that person. This disease is mostly confused with being overweight but the reality is, obesity is caused by accumulation of so many calories in the body while being overweight indicates that a person is weighing way too much than normal. The overweight may be as a result of many factors such as accumulation of so much water, bone fat or even muscle. However both overweight and obesity has one thing in common in that the person has more weight than the one he/she is supposed to have hence this is medically considered as unhealthy. This paper therefore will narrow down its argument on the childhood obesity.
Childhood obesity has become a major concern to all nations across the world. This is because it has widely affected the lives, education and social-economic status of their lives. These children majorly face stigmatization from the society, emotional, social and psychological challenges. Over the years since 1980s the health disorder has been increasing widely resulting to it becoming an epidemic. As a result of the long term effects of this medical condition in the young generation, most of the public health practitioners have vowed to help curb this condition so as to create a healthy generation (MORENO et al 2013). Also this would help ensure that the obese children are free from becoming obese adults thus they are able to live longer lives full of health.
Causes of childhood obesity
The origin causes of childhood obesity are rather complex and uncertain but it is rather clear that children often turn out to be obese when they eat too much and they exercise very little. To add on that, most of these children end up making poor food choice, unhealthy choice of eating and a lot of snack eating than the consumption of healthy vegetable and fruits. not having calorie burning exercise is another contributing factor towards obesity health condition. The maternal excessive consumption rate of fatty foods by the mother during the pregnancy period may lead to the overeating behavior of the child (Flamenbaum 2006). This factor is based on the psychological view that the fat consumption by the mother at her pregnancy program may have induced changes within the mind of the fetal brain. This results to the stimulation of appetite thus high production of peptides. After birth these peptides continues to produce more throughout the life of the child hence ending to the obesity condition.
Signs and symptoms
There are different symptoms that may occur to different children; however there are common symptoms among the children. One of the symptoms is the occurrence of stretch marks on the hip and abdomen area with a dark and soft skin around the neck area. They also have fatty tissues especially for the boys around the breast area (Flamenbaum 2006). They also have psychological symptoms such as having a low self-esteem, eating disorders while they also tend to be chitchat and abusive. They also have a breathing problem especially when they are active physically and snores a lot at night. They also have gastro esophageal reflux with constipation problems. They also reproductively mature early as the girls experience an early puberty with irregularity in menstrual cycle in the young girls (Flamenbaum 2006).
Whereas in the boys they experience delayed puberty while their genitals may seem to be small in the young males. They also tend to have flat feet with painful knock-knees and hip dislocation. Some of the common signs of childhood obesity involve weight increase, increase of appetite and inactivity. Other signs may include, the emotional eating habit as well are boredom, nervousness and depression (Flamenbaum 2006). Lack of interest in physical playing activities and more interest on computer games may be another least sign of obesity.
Risk factors
Basically, the life of an infant may be at risk of obesity from birth or the early life of the infant to an age of seven years. However, some of these risk factors may appear at the start or simply before the birth of the infant. However some of these risk factors which occurs by the time the child attains the age of seven years includes, higher weight of the infant during birth. Another risk factor is the parental obesity and rapid increase of weight especially in the first years of the Childs life (Flamenbaum 2006). The act of spending much of the time while watching the television or playing video games while at three years that is much more than 8 hours. Spending of fewer hours for a three years child that is less than ten and a half hour per night is another risk factor. The early development of child body fatness before reaching the age of 5-6 years is risky as this should be the time when the fat content in the body should be increasing. Another risk is the rapid cat-up growth of the child between his/her birth and two years.
This disease can however be considered as contagious since it can greatly be influenced by the entire society. The family in specific can influence the eating habits of a child and they can contribute to overeating behavior as the parents may poorly feed them.
The parents also determine the choice of foods for their children as they are the ones who provide the food type to the children. Peer pressure is another influence towards the Childs obesity since the choice of food by the peers may result to the child being influenced to take the same choice of foods. The friends are also influencers as they may influence each other to stay indoors and totally fail to do exercises as they play video games. The culture in general may influence the childhood obesity condition as any culture has their food preference over the others and it is this food preference that may cause the obese condition to the young generation due to the environment they are raised in (Flamenbaum 2006). these patterns are quite tempting and they are progressive from one generation to another unless a good prevention is strategized and implemented so as to curb the result of the whole society suffering obesity.
PREVALENCE
The occurrence of childhood obesity has tripled over the years and currently researchers’ are estimating that in one child in every five children in the United States has obesity condition. Prevalence of the obesity condition in childhood is basically different in different nations with the highest prevalence of 16%in Hispanic, followed by 19% in African America, 35-40% prevalence in Native Americans. The obese children in preschool is rapidly increasing with likelihood that these children will become five times more likely to be obesity adults (MORENO et al 2013).
Transmission
This kind of condition may be transmitted to the children from the parents. Most of the children from obese parents tend to be obese themselves.
This is because there is the existence of the inherited component that is transmitted to the child from the parents and hence results to the child acquiring the obese disorder. Parental obesity may also create an environment where it promotes excessive eating with insufficient physical activity. Also this disorder may be transmitted from parents who have poor nutritional behaviors and who lead sedentary lifestyles. This creates an environment that is unsuitable hence may cause obesity condition.
Treatment
This majorly aims at reducing the fat content in the body by reduction of food consumption and also aims at removing the causative agents of obesity. However, reduction of causative agents may be difficult especially for emotional and psycholo0gical causes. Medical supervision is one of the treatment where the patient is supervised so bas to reduce weight to normal by reducing the intake of calories. Dieting is an important treatment which is quick in producing results without so much effort and this ultimately results to reduction and maintenance of weight at a normal level that is healthy (Flamenbaum 2006). Increased physical activity is important as it will help burn calories. Dietary changes are also efficient and it involves reduced calorie intake with the substitution of fruits together with vegetables for carbohydrates.
Community Impact
Prevention of obesity in children is a concern to the community as it extends beyond the individual or the family and beyond the geographical boundaries. This therefore brings people with the same interest together and shares the same values in promoting healthy lifestyles. So many factors within the community setting influence the health of the children (Flamenbaum 2006).
The core goal of a community is to ensure that the children within the society grows healthy and are mentally and physically productive. Hence the community must be capable to foster social norms so as to support both energetic and physical activeness in their lives.
Implications for the teacher
The teachers can encourage the young students to consume water instead of sweetened beverages and they should ensure that the water is freely provided and that they access the water while in school. They should also ensure that they provide these students with food that do meet the dietary recommendation at lunch meals such as fruits and vegetables. They should also adopt a curriculum where their students are vigorously engaged in physical activities during the physical lessons. They should also implement the addition of health education into their curriculum so as to create awareness on the importance of healthy living and dietary requirement and its significance.
A parent or the teacher can enquire more on healthy guidelines from the following sources retrieved from the internet:
https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/nutrition/resources/obparnts.htm
References
Flamenbaum, R. K. (2006). Childhood obesity and health research. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Hawkes, C. (2007). Promoting healthy diets and tackling obesity and diet-related chronic diseases: what are the agricultural policy levers?. Food and nutrition bulletin, 28(2 suppl2), S312-S322.
MORENO, G., JOHNSON-SHELTON, D., & BOLES, S. (2013). Prevalence and Prediction of Overweight and Obesity Among Elementary School Students. Journal Of School Health, 83(3), 157-163.
