Nutrition and Childhood Obesity Free Essays

There is a lot of talk these days about childhood obesity and why it seems that today’s children are more overweight than the previous generations. The fact of the matter is that we live in time where things are constantly changing such as our jobs, the way we spend our time, and the way that we look. Obesity has been a major issue for many years in the United States. We will write a custom essay sample on Nutrition and Childhood Obesity or any similar topic only for you Order Now Children as well as adults suffer from obesity and the rates are increasing every year. Obesity can be a result of heredity, overeating, psychological disorders, other medical conditions, etc. but no matter what the cause is, it can lead to other problems. One out of five children in American schools are obese due to poor school lunch, fast food restaurants, and sedatary lifestyle without exercise and lack of parental involvement. Adult and childhood obesity have increased substantially in the last 30 years. Currently, 31% of adults and 18% of children are obese, as defined by their body mass index (BMI). One of the main factor that is causing obesity in children, is the quality of food in our school systems. School cafeterias are serving canned foods with high sugar content, fried chicken nuggets and soda machines in the hallway. The meals that are currently available to our children are not healthy enough to eat. . The school cafeteria are feeding children food that has high amount of fat and carbohydrate content, not to mention the vending machines that are stocked with potato chips,candy,soda and baked goods that are loaded with high calories and sodium. The children need full course nutritious meals to help them function in class and keep their energy levels high. In order for our children to make healthier choices, the products in the vending machine should be replaced with snacks such as fruit, crackers, raisins and yogurt which are all healthy alternative. What I also see as a major contributor to obesity in children and adults is Fast Food Restaurants. Today people are so busy and they just aren’t taking the â€Å"time† that’s needed to prepare a healthy dinner. People are constantly on the go, and find it very convenient to pick up a Whopper at Burger King or a Hot Dog from Sonic. The Fast Food Restaurants are a billion dollar industry and a quick fix for people on the go. The convenience of the fast food industry allows working people to gather food for their family, when they are in a time crunch. The people view this as a time saver, but in reality, they are harming themselves and their family by not cooking healthy meals. The calories and high fat content in fast-food helps American to gain weight faster, also leads to health problems that include heart problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and stroke to avoid these problems as American we need to stop eating out and try to prepare healthy meals at home with organic food or regular food like in previous times. In my opinion they need to replace some of these restaurants with healthy organic restaurants around the world to eliminate some of this epidemic in obesity to keep Americans living longer. Another reason that our children are obese is that our children tend to stay inside and play video games and watch television for hours on end, rather than stepping outside and having fun or exercising. In many schools throughout the United States, there has been a decrease in the amount of free play or physical activity that children receive during school hours. Only about one-third of elementary children have daily physical education, and less than one-fifth have extracurricular physical activity programs at their schools. In order to live a well-rounded healthy lifestyle physical activity should be incorporated into a child’s daily activities. Exercise helps children build strong bones and muscle and helps fight against obesity. Parental involvement in the prevention of childhood obesity is very important. The problem is that many parents don’t fully understand the problem themselves nor have a good understanding of what it takes to start your child off right with a healthy life. Parent involvement is very important in the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity. The positive influence helps to teach the child healthy behaviors that will help them to make healthy food choices. Teaching your child healthy eating habits is one of the basic and easiest childhood obesity prevention tips. When your child knows the importance of eating proper amounts of food, drinking enough water and then playing well, you won’t have to bother about obesity at all. Parent has to become involved by monitoring their children’s eating habits. The parents can prepare healthy meals by eliminating bad fats from their children’s diets. The parents could prepare lunch using meats lean meats and products low in fat and salt like ham, turkey, fish and chicken, while make sure that they are not forcing them to eat too much. Childhood obesity prevention, can start by preparing delicious foods such as French fries, potato skins, pizzas, nachos, desserts, etc. , at home, to keep them from overeating these foods from outside. Kids get tempted to eat junk very easily, and in order to control this, prepare these meals at home so you won’t have to bother about junk cravings! Last but not least, we need to address all these programs out-hear that is associated with weight loss; weight is approved for safe weight loss by the food and Drug Administration, weight loss supplement is a joke. Some companies advertise all these weight loss programs that do not work on Americans but getting rich off the poor and wealthy, â€Å"pills and diet plans promising to help shed pounds in days have made the weight loss industry more than $62 Billion a year business. The Doctors knows some of the plans don’t work but they don’t care all they see is a dollar sign in front of their face, as Americans we need to educate our self on what plan works for use not what others say. In today society as Americans we need not to listen to some of the Doctor or advertisement, we will be in some much debt about time you realize that you are broke and some of these diet plans didn’t work at all. In my opinion as American we need to do this plan the old fashion way without medication to help use loss weight. (1) Cardio is the key work keep the hearting pumping in-order to loss the weight (2) weight-train help you to get tone and burn fat. (3) Swimming is the best exercise because it works all the muscle (4) Eat six times a day, morning meal, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack How to cite Nutrition and Childhood Obesity, Papers