Health Essays Childhood Obesity Overweight

health Essays childishness Obesity Over lading childhood Obesity Overweight demonstrationChildhood fleshiness in the unify States is proving to be a f either out of major concern. Throughout the past decades, this discern has been overlooked and precisely unat run fored to. new(prenominal) health starts such as second-hand smoke and coffin nailcer hurl indeed been the more popular divisions turn to. However, people atomic number 18 kickoff to get wind a change in the leaders of tomorrow. Quite frankly, these children argon befitting extremely unhealthy and overweight. In the past, it was out of the ordinary to protrude a child that was round.However, overweight children in the get together States argon actu entirelyy starting to become a norm (Koplan, Liverman Kraak, 2005). This is where the problem begins to unfold. P arnts are becoming increasingly concerned some their childrens health due to the fact that fleshiness hinders a large-minded scarper of fa ctors. Imagine a child that stomach non act in either extracurricular activities such as baseball, soccer, or basketball due to his or her weight.Then, try to develop to that child that due to organism overweight, he or she might get down an increased chance of titty disease, strokes, and high blood pressure (Vessey MacKenzie, 2000). Above all, imagine cosmos a child and learning that unmatched of their peers has in effect(p) died due to the fact that he or she was obese. unity moldiness begin to realize that the lives of children in the unify States are at s stimulate.Science in the past has told the public that separately(prenominal) generation is living longer than its precedent. The tide has turned sadly appearly as scientists are predicting that this verity is straightway untrue (Kimm Obarzanek, 2002). With that being said, if lives are beginning to shorten, one might conclude that it is now period to state some action.In an attempt to explore the idea of childishness fleshiness one must result to an interdisciplinary analysis. The topic involves a wide range of themes such as biology, sociology, psychology, and business, which should all be riden into setting to avoid an oversimplification. at that place is non one single arrest that place fully compensate the entire scope of childhood fleshiness (Repko, 2005). By narrowing down the search, a large amount of info result be looked at using numerous lines to try to avoid a biased outcome.The extent of obesity in children is an extremely multifaceted topic and desperately needs to be approached this way to fully grasp and moil the even sot. Also, for a complete reckoning and resolution to be formulated, e rattling check into needed to investigate the thin must be employ. Childhood obesity contains a vast range of disciplines to help in its characterization. With that being said, these disciplines tend to all be interlocked with one another.Looking at childhood o besity through the discipline of biology for instance would constantly be tip the researcher to a psychological standpoint both cadence a p maturate is turned. Simply ignoring certain disciplines would be an extreme mistake in trying to come to a conclusive solution of the issue addressed and would most credibly lead to a biased opinion.DisciplinesThe following is a compilation of all the disciplines use along with apiece of their contributions in the cultivate of addressing the issue of childhood obesity. There is indeed a vast range of disciplines that are included. Chemistry, economics, law, and history all bring important insights to the table when addressing childhood obesity. Chemistry impart look at various experimental data to try to prize the various structures of fats and sugars that are involved in a childs diet.Economics could be used to try to consider the feasible effects that production and distribution of certain feeds has when placed in front of children. Why are these extremely unhealthy foods being allot on the shelf for kids to buy? Economics would try to investigate this issue and bring forth a decisive explanation. In addition, law would be utilized to help to take care what governmental efforts cave in been do towards the issue of childhood obesity.Are the feels being taken by are government in the cover direction or are they simply dancing around the heart of the issue? Finally, history is a in truth helpful discipline in referencing statistical data taken about obese children. Has this problem al shipway been around or is it just now becoming an issue? History with the help of statistics result also enlarge past successes and failures of strategies that were put in action to help to aid the issue being discussed.Throughout the course of the investigation of childhood obesity all the preceding disciplines listed impart be taken into consideration. However, biology, sociology, and business allow be most relevant and crucial to the process of defining the issue at hand.BiologyBiology will be used to try to understand the needs of the human eubstance to progress and function. Each person has a minimum amount of calories that must be consumed to seemlyly run its processes. Likewise, each person has a unique rate of consume these calories and converting them to energy. The researcher feces use biology to place an actually meter of health of an individual.Attaining a proper measurement or gauge of health has proven to be a very difficult task. Height, sex, genetics, bone structure, and even ethnicity are all very important factors that determine a childs proper weight. Biology will help to place a gauge on each of these factors and formulate a proper medium for each person. This discipline will be examined first in the following writing because one needs to understand what obesity is before he or she can begin to examine the problem. Biology will basically lay a mental institution for the res t of the disciplines as to how they are to be used to assess obesity in children.SociologyNext, a viewpoint found on sociology must be addressed. Demographics of families, along with their ethnicities will be looked at to try to explain the effects of obesity on certain specific commonwealths. Society will be investigated to try to expose the viewpoints of obese children and their parents. Does society really understand the issue? Do children place any concern with health and fitness? These are both very important questions that sociology will help to address through the aid of statistical data.Also, both child does develop the right to choose what he or she consumes on a day-to-day basis. Hence, each child must face all of the problems that a burn down if he or she becomes obese. Obesity is not purely a biological problem. If the previous account was true, a child could then simply consume less calories and blowsy weight. However, a child has to make cognitive choices and ob servations about what is put onable.Sociology will step in and try to uncover any problems that whitethorn be resulting in a population of obese children that simply are misguided by the viewpoints of society. This discipline will be used after biology in apprehends to build upon the freshly understanding of the problem. Once a person understands the physiological aspects of childhood obesity using biology, then he or she can delve into the societal traits. artFinally, obesity has become such a large issue that it has effectively created an entire new manufacturing to take care of itself. Business is a discipline that will be used to help explain the way industries portray children and how they affect what populations recognize and understand. Business will try to assess ethical issues as to whether the food industry for example is making an effort to help.There are obviously legion(predicate) businesses in the United States that are trying to educate children about obesity. H owever, for every positive product formed, there is another marketing scheme that is made to try to take advantage of a very helpless situation. As a result, the structure and function of the food industry needs to be addressed and scanned for possible pitfalls and shortcomings.Lastly, the discipline of business will be used in the final part of this paper in hopes to illustrate how it relates venture to the obese children. The reader will then stillmore understand the process of this issue and how it is rooted in almost every aspect of life.In summation, childhood obesity is an extremely sophisticated problem involving the ethics and moral philosophy or our society. Children cannot be expected to solve their own problem and desperately need help from all ends of the spectrum. The purpose of this paper is to lay the foundation for a better understanding and new perspective of childhood obesity.This perspective will hopefully stem new possible outcomes that are constructed by the synthesis of each of the disciplines contributions. Furthermore, the following writing will attempt to educate society of the dangers of childhood obesity and show that this is not a problem caused by one situation. Hopefully the reader will realize that through an interdisciplinary understanding, bringing an end to obesity in children is not an unattainable goal.BackgroundHow is childhood obesity defined? Has this issue been around for a long time or is it merely just beginning to cause trouble for the United States? These are two very important questions that every individual needs to be aware of. One cannot expect to be able to successfully tackle an issue without well-educated its history beforehand.First, childhood obesity is basically defined as a person that has a body commode index that is above the ninety-fifth percentile. That is, the individual exceeds his or her natural weight by approximately 20%. Body mass index is the most widely accepted procedure for sampling obes ity in large populations.Basically, it is a numerical measurement composed of a persons height and weight. Although this particular sample does not take a persons bone structure into consideration, the average of an boilersuit population remains very accurate (Vessey MacKenzie, 2000).The people involved in this issue are individuals between the ages of 6 and 17. Male and female children including every ethnicity that resides in the United States are included in this problem. Although obesity grade are increasing almost exponentially in all age groups, children seem to be of the most concern to health experts today. These children are in the most important stage of their growth. An overweight child is putting his or her entire life interbreed in jeopardy (Green Reese, 2006).Adolescent obesity has not been around as long as other problems such as cancer, leukemia, or the flu. Yet, it is unique due to the fact that childhood obesity is increment at such an alarming rate. The first signs of childhood obesity began to expect in the 1960s (Schwartz Puhl, 2003). What caused this sudden weight stumble in children during this time? There are several possible explanations however there does not seem to be one clearly defined culprit.The profligate food industry is just one of the possible causes that is often looked at. Critics believe that during the 1960s fast food was starting to embed in American culture. McDonalds restaurants were daddy up all around the United States offering a pronto and effortless repast. Before fast food, most families were dependant upon time consuming home cooked meals. However, for the first time, people were starting to realize that a ready-to-eat meal was just a few dollars away. Consequently, people started putting the healthy meal aside and began to grab a quick sandwich from a fast food restaurant.Hence, in the 1960s childrens calorie intake began to rise as their eating habits were basically being altered by society. Statist ics showed during this time that the per centum of obese children was approximately 4.5%. As calorie intake began to rise, physiological activities began to decrease. Approximately 33% of students in high school do not expose themselves to any strenuous physical activity.Present day schools are so involved in standardized testing that extracurricular activities have been in some ways taken out of the daily lesson plan. as yet technology, which usually always aids in the advancement of society, has played a role in increasing rates of childhood obesity. Computer based games, and highly sophisticated cell phones are a few examples that have placed negative outcomes on beneficial cardiovascular events (Harper, 2006).Heath experts began to see a problem by the 1970s. The discipline Health and Nutrition mental test Survey was one of the first efforts in addressing the issue of childhood obesity. A study was done in three parts during a 25-year span starting in the late 1960s. The te st studied the body mass index of children and adjusted the results as age, sex, and ethnicity of the population of children changed through time.The results were anything but subtle. There was a 40% increase of overweight children in the ten-year span of the first and second studies. No other illness at this time was even close to growing at such an astounding rate (Rosenbaum Leibel, 1998). With that being said, the third study that was completed in 1994 delivered a divesting knockout punch. The National Health and Nutrition Survey revealed that the number of obese children in the United States had grown a monstrous 100% in the past 10 years (Dietz Gortmaker, 2001).Obesity in children was now considered an epidemic. In the past decade, the percentage of obese adolescents in the 95th percentile has once again doubled. pear-shaped children between the ages of 6 and 11 seemed to have the highest grow rates of any other subgroup. Estimates were now showing that almost 15% of the chil dren in the United States are obese or extremely overweight. Obesity does not seem to be biased towards any particular age, race, or gender. However, African American girls, Hispanics, and American Indians were shown to have the largest overweight populations (Koplan, Liverman Kraak, 2005).Why are obese children the population that is drawing the most attention? First, biologists studying this epidemic have historied that fact that the gene pool in the United States has basically remained the equivalent over the past 15 years. This tends to rule out any possible explanations dealing with actual evolutionary changes or modifications in the human body. As a result, scientists tend to believe that the causes of the increase in childrens weight are a product of environmental effects on metabolism.At any rate, it is shown that individuals who are obese as children are most likely beginning a lifelong fight (Dietz Gortmaker, 2001). Present studies have shown that approximately 95% of o bese individuals who succeed in loosing weight tend to gain almost all of it back over time (Koplan, Liverman Kraak, 2005). This statement is back up by our ever-increasing percentage of obese adults. In 2001, statistics show that there were 29 states containing a percentage of obese adults of 20% or greater.Hence, prevention at the earliest possible age is said to be the only hope for success in stopping this seemingly out of control problem. It is shown that the younger the child is, the less likely he or she will have developed bad eating habits. Also, younger children tend to be frequently easier to work with as oppose to stubborn teenagers who may not accept parental influence.All in all, childhood obesity tends to result in numerous mental, physical and social health disorders for the growing individual. Without immediate discourse at a young age, obesity in children may track to grow (Kimm Obarzanek, 2002).The following writing will continue to decipher the issue of ad olescent obesity and will expose crucial concepts, theories and assumptions dealing with each discipline involved. Biology will first be discussed with the goal of further defining the physical and biological effects of childhood obesity. One must understand how the child physically becomes obese and what biological factors are involved.Next, sociology will be addressed with the goal of educating the reader of the impacts that society has on obese children. Are there any direct causes of obesity that society may have initiated? Finally, business will be mined for possible ways that large companies and organizations have affected the issue. Are these interventions effective or are they merely ways to mask the problem?In conclusion, each discipline involved offers its own understanding of childhood obesity. One must take each possible approach into consideration in hopes of forming a new more comprehensive explanation. An interdisciplinary approach is used in this situation to help or ganize the inputs of the disciplines and then synthesize them into a new holistic picture. This process helps to avoid a biased opinion, which is likely formed by increasing specialization of the disciplines. Furthermore it attacks the issue from every angle deep down the reach of the disciplines used (Repko, 2005).ReferencesBiologyDietz, W., Gortmaker, S. (2001). PREVENTING corpulency IN CHILDREN ANDADOLESCENTS. Annual check over of Public Health, 22(1), 337. RetrievedFebruary 29, 2008, from Academic Search gross(a) database.Kimm, S., Obarzanek, E. (2002, November). Childhood Obesity A New Pandemic ofthe New Millennium. Pediatrics, 110(5), 1003. Retrieved February 8, 2008, fromAcademic Search Complete database.Rosenbaum, M., Leibel, R. (1998, March). The physiology of body weight regulationRelevance to the Pediatrics, 101(3), 525. Retrieved February 29, 2008, fromAcademic Search Complete database.Vessey, J., MacKenzie, N. (2000, September). Childhood Obesity Strategies forP revention. Pediatric Nursing, 26(5), 527. Retrieved February 8, 2008, fromAcademic Search Complete database.SociologyGreen, G., Reese, S. (2006, Fall). CHILDHOOD OBESITY A GROWINGPHENOMENON FOR PHYSICAL EDUCATORS. Education, 127(1), 121-124.Retrieved February 29, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.Koplan, J., Liverman, C., Kraak, V. (2005, Spring). Preventing Childhood Obesity.Issues in Science Technology, 21(3), 57-64. Retrieved February 4, 2008, fromAcademic Search Complete database.Schwartz, M., Puhl, R. (2003, February). Childhood obesity a societal problem tosolve. Obesity Reviews, 4(1), 57-71. Retrieved February 29, 2008, fromAcademic Search Complete database.BusinessHarper, M. (2006, October). Childhood Obesity. Family Community Health, 29(4),288-298. Retrieved February 29, 2008, from Academic Search Completedatabase.Other disciplinesRepko, A (2005). Interdisciplinary practice a student guide to research and writing.Boston, MA Pearson Custom Publishing.